‘Rawhide’ is still TV’s high water mark

Some folks were talking about the greatest invention, event, or happening in our lifetime. Well, in my case, that covers a lot of ground. And I immediately gave them Leon’s stock answer when that question rolled around back in his day:

“The thermos bottle.”

My older brother loved the startled look on everyone’s face when he didn’t say moon landing, John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Viet Nam, the birth of computers, the British music invasion led by the Beatles, or the annual goat roping contest they used to hold in Helena, Arkansas.

Before the startled people could get their respective mouths closed, Leon would add with a completely straight face, “It’s the darndest contraption, that remarkable thermos bottle knows when to keep hot things hot… and cold things cold.”

Believe it or not, this question would come up back when we were in elementary school. ’Course, at the time, we didn’t have enough “lifetime” to make it pertinent to any great extent. I guess we could have answered with the time Bobby Brewer threw a lighted pack of firecrackers in amongst all those big animals on Mule Day. 

Or we could have “remembered” trying to catch those greased pigs at the county fair. Leon’s Halloween runaway horse ride through town as the “Headless Horseman” would have been a good candidate. As would the time he snuck the cow into the high school auditorium.

The big free-for-all up at the Skyway Grill hadn’t taken place yet. But those chairs and bottles flying through the air and Rollin Trull tossing Chet Hinson halfway through a plate glass window was the first thing mentioned when this same question came up in high school. I didn’t actually see Chet hit the window, I was halfway out the back door, already pondering what I was going to say when Daddy found out about this incident.

Miss Belle Alexander, our third-grade teacher, wisely expanded the question to include the entire 20^th century to at least give us a chance. We still stuttered, paused, and twisted embarrassingly in our seats trying to come up with a viable answer. World War II, automobiles, and airplanes were about all we could muster up.

Bobby Brewer, who you maybe have already ascertained was the smartest guy in our class, didn’t take a split second to answer, “Miss Belle, I don’t think the greatest thing in the 20^th century has happened yet!” This was in 1957. And I am still marveling at the astuteness of his 10-year-old mind.

But a serious question deserves a serious answer. For me, it is hard not to say television. I saw my first set just a few houses up Stonewall Street circa the time Bobby was answering Miss Belle. We were playing “hide-and-go-seek” at Richard and Linda Gregg’s house. I had heard all about TVs. Kids all over town were raving about them. But to peep through the screen door and see it for myself is a moment forever frozen in time.

The show was “I’ve Got a Secret.” Gary Moore was the host. They had a panel of experts trying to guess what that secret was. These people were in New York City for goodness sakes! And I was looking at them plain as day in Greggs’ living room in McKenzie, Tennessee.

It’s the stuff miracles are made of!

And ok, I admit, it wasn’t exactly as “plain as day.” There was some snow in the picture, and, remember, I was looking through a screen door. But you could see Gary Moore with his crew haircut. And you could definitely distinguish panelist Henry Morgan from Jayne Meadows.

It was in black and white and the TV box was as big as all outdoors, but the screen was kinda small and rounded at the corners. Size didn’t matter. It was a picture show right in your living room. I’m still a little bit awed by it to this day.

We got our first set a couple of years later. It would play the National Anthem when it signed on in the morning. And it would play it again when they signed off at midnight. We watched everything in between. We only had two channels. CBS and NBC. But believe me, it was all we needed!

“The Lone Ranger,” fighting for truth and justice, became an early favorite. I liked a detective show entitled “Boston Blackie.” I ate a lot of Wheaties cereal because it sponsored “Tales of the Texas Rangers.” We got all of the news of the day via a 15-minute segment every evening with Walter Cronkite.

I’m telling you, WDXI-TV out of Jackson, Tennessee, had live studio wrestling every Saturday night. They’d have Frank “Tarzan” Hewitt pitted against Tojo Yamamoto. It was sponsored by a flour company. They did live commercials in front of stacks of flour located just outside the ring. You can bet before the evening was over, Frank and Tojo were banging each other over the head with exploding sacks of flour.

TV changed my world. It expanded my world. It brought entertainment and information to my world. It shaped the world to come for me. And when I didn’t have any money, it was an inexpensive way to spend the evening with my date. Of course, she had to put up with Mom and Dad questioning her intentions… and Leon and David Mark making fun of her…

Respectfully,

Kes