I WAS the remote control

My dad would lay on the couch with one arm stuck up in the air all day long on his days off. He wouldn't get up to change the channel. He would lay there and bellow my name for as long as it took for me to come and change the channel. Sometimes I would pretend not to hear him just to see how long he would do it. Unless somebody else happened along in the meantime he would holler just as long as it would take for me to do it.

For the younger viewers, this was back in the days before remote controls. The tv went off air every night at 1 a.m. and came back on at 6 or 7 in the morning. Every night finished and every morning started with the National Anthem. Television shows would start with the announcement, "NOW IN LIVING COLOR!"

We had a VCR years before anybody else did. It was a huge dinosaur of a machine and the top would raise and you would put giant tapes inside it. There were no movies available at the time. It came with a movie camera and you made your own movies or you taped television shows that you liked.

One time my parents made the funniest movie at one of their poker games. The stars were my uncles and other members of the family. I remember everyone cackling with laughter at my uncle Johnny because he had dressed up like a woman and as he put his purse over his shoulder he chortled, "I'm a transvestite!"

It was funny stuff It rivaled anything I've ever seen on tv. Too bad it all burned up in the fire.