Aerial

Are you old enough to remember the heyday of T.V. antennas? Your only method of receiving signals from local (and some faraway) stations? You can still see them atop some houses, hospitals, businesses.  To me, they are not blights on the landscape, but rather comforting reminders of simpler times.  Those that remain stand tall in this digital and even nearly post-cable age, almost defiant in their stance, like a soldier holding a post, despite frequent punishing weather.  VHF and UHF forever!

Yes, I realize that antennas are still used, they just don't receive analog signals.  One needs a digital converter box if the television is analog.

Until the early 1980s, we had one.  The last one was shaped like an arrow.  While the stations from Broward county were still a bit snowy, I fondly remember Channel 45, with its reruns of Leave It To Beaver and Channel 51 showing old Bat Masterson episodes.  The Holy Grail was the VHF Channel 6, which seemed to be very intriguing programming (I was a TV Guide maven in those days).  It was an independent out of Miami, and even people in Ft. Lauderdale had trouble picking it up.  Once for a few glorious days I was actually able to get it on the little black and white in my bedroom, with its bent two pronged square protrusion in the back.  It was astonishing.  The wind must have been blowing just right.  Radio host Big Wilson did some spots. A between programs bit called "Snippets", aimed at children, had educational value.   Things like this thrilled my young heart.

How crushing! Hurricane David sent out beloved aerial into our backyard in 1979.  We also lost power for several days.  I stayed with my grandparents, who lived a bit east of us.  They had no such setbacks.  I helped my dad reinstall the mighty antenna, and it remained there for another two years or so.  Actually, a bit longer.

My friend down the street got cable circa 1981. The Showtime pay TV channel.  Of course I was down there as much as possible.  After a round of Marco Polo in his pool we'd watch uncut movies like AIRPLANE! and MORE AMERICAN GRAFFITI.  It was magical.  No commercials! People were swearing! When we happened to catch the sketch comedy show Bizarre, we got to see female breasts.   We were twelve.  A very big deal.

Somehow, I convinced my parents to subscribe to Showtime.  I can still remember hearing my mother gasp in the other room when she first watched Bizarre.  She was not as liberal as my friend's mother, who actually let her son and I watch such "smut".  I was raised in an environment where you were more or less taught that you would go blind if you saw female nudity in a movie or show.  Violence was OK.  I've never understood that, or heard a satisfactory explanation in its defense. Why? Because there isn't one.  Talk to someone who grew up in say, Europe in earlier years.  Nudity was very common on T.V., even in commercials.  I imagine most of those impressionable viewers turned out to be well adjusted adults, free of the hang-ups that plague so many Americans.

So now the mighty antenna was just a prop, an ersatz weather mane.  No longer needed.  Cable cleared the snow.  I was not nostalgic for "regular TV" though I still watched plenty of network shows well into the 80s. My father finally pulled old faithful down.  I don't recall being even slightly sad about it.

When analog signals ceased to be transmitted in 2009 (excluding some low power stations), many aerials remained but their time had certainly passed.  I always think of childhood when I see them.  Innocent family time around the T.V. before cable invaded and desensitized us.  It's a nice memory, a warm feeling.