Thursday, December 4, 2008

First color TV

Someone mentioned the "great Sony TV Joe bought" on a previous comment. I laughed, figuring the statute of limitations had clearly run out on something that happened over 34 years ago.
Little did I relize I am still in the marital doghouse, with room, it appears for Kevin, strictly as a bad influence. When I mentioned it, all of the anger quickly was brought back.
Here's the honest story. In 1974, when we moved to San Francisco, we lived with Sally and Kevin for about five weeks, just long enough for us to find an apartment, get the lease signed, and move in on July 1.
To be all too honest, we weren't at all worried about cash flow. We were still being paid on twelve month teaching contracts, so we were going to receive, both of us, our full monthly check, close to the end of June, July, and August. Actuallly, it is germane to the story that Suzanne was paid on the 20th of each month, Joe on the
25th.
So about June 23, Suzanne's paycheck arrived in the mail. Now we were going to need a television in the next couple weeks, Suzanne already had a job, and Joe was starting one on July 15, so cash was next to no concern. Therefore, Kevin and I shot down to Eber Electronics, which by the way, remained in business in the same location until just a couple years ago. I also bought my first cd player there, in the early 1980s.
Well, it did not take us long to pick out a brand new Sony 17 inch color television. It was a KV-1722, and it was beyond wonderful. Here's a link, cut and paste to see picture: http://store.vintagepaperads.com/servlet/-strse-18163/1975-Sony-Trinitron-KV-dsh-1722/Detail
The decision to purchase might very well have been affected by an upcoming three game televised series the Giants were playing in Los Angeles.
Now, I am sure I discussed this at length, and no one shoulsd have been surprised, or upset 34 years later. The fact that it took one whole monthly paycheck, almost exactly, for a 17 inch TV seems a little steep now, particularly as you see what you can buy for about the same amount of money, but we could afford it easily enough and the television gave us years of faithful service.
Of course, after remote controls became common, it was easy to decide not to fix it when it malfuntioned about twenty years later, after we had moved back to Nebraska.
I certainly can't say it did not serve us very well, even if it cost a month's salary.
But I sure think I should not still be in trouble for the purchase.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I remember that TV! You got a lot of years of service out of that one month's salary. Still, if you want to buy that big, fancy TV you probably shouldn't mention it anymore...

Anonymous said...

It was a revolution to us, we had a 7 or 8 inch black and white set. The Sony...you could sit on either the left or right and still get a great picture.