Bill Poteat
What does this thing do? Why, it rotates the TV antenna on a pole above your house so that you can get the best possible reception.
WBTV weatherman Clyde “Cloudy” McClean in his 1960s heyday at Channel 3 in Charlotte.
They checked the oil and the tires, cleaned the windshield, and pumped your gas. A service station attendant in the 1960s.
Even though I am but an aged whiff of flatulence, I would never go so far as to suggest that life 50 or 60 years ago was better than it is today.
Too many variables at play. Too many apples to oranges.
But I can say that there are certainly some things I sorely miss from those long-ago decades, things that made life at least a little better.
How about?
Coke in 6-ounce glass bottles
Part of the joy in getting a Coke when I was a youngster was the realization that when served in so small a container, each swallow of that sweet brown cola was absolutely precious.
And even though the laws of physics — or of taste — may not back me up on this one, a Coke in a glass bottle simply tastes far better, far crisper, far sweeter than does a Coke encased in either plastic or aluminum.
Of course, I might also mention that the Cokes in those 6-ounce glass bottles were made with real sugar rather than the mysterious and fat-inducing high fructose corn syrup.
Full-service gas stations
No, they weren’t called convenience stores or mini-marts or whatever. They were called gas stations or, in my neck of the woods, filling stations.
The concept was simple.
You pulled up to a pump and popped your hood latch.
A smiling man in a uniform would come out and ask, “Whaddya need?”
If you could afford it, the preferred response was, “Fill ’er up.”
Which the attendant would do. But while the gas was pumping, he would also check your car’s oil, take a look at each tire’s pressure, and clean the windshield.
Again, I think it was called, “service.”
While I’m on the subject I should also admit that I sorely miss the price that I paid for gas back when I first began driving — 37 cents per gallon. Now, 37 cents worth of gas wouldn’t moisten the bottom of the tank.
A TV I knew how to work
As a lad at the Poteat house in Drexel, five television channels were available:
- WBTV — Channel 3 — the CBS affiliate in Charlotte.
- WFBC — Channel 4 — the NBC affiliate in Greenville, S.C.
- WSPA — Channel 7 — the CBS affiliate in Spartanburg, S.C.
- WSOC — Channel 9 — the ABC affiliate in Charlotte.
- WLOS — Channel 13 — the ABC affiliate in Asheville.
Of course, solar activity affected TV reception in those days, and I can recall brief windows when Channel 2 in Greensboro, Channel 8 in High Point, Channel 5 in Bristol, Tenn., and Channel 10 in Columbia, S.C., could be seen in crystal clarity.
No UHF channels.
No satellite dishes.
No cable.
Just an antenna on the roof that could be moved with something called the “Ten-A-Rotor.”
Now, my TV has no channels. It has no networks. It has nothing that I can understand.
Instead, we have streaming.
Which means what we really have is screaming, because that is what I do when I can’t figure out how to find the Atlanta Braves or reruns of “The Andy Griffith” show.
Luckily, my bride is a lot more tech savvy than I am, and she simply hands me a piece of hard candy, tells me to stop crying, and finds the game I want to see somewhere in “The Stream.”
If she’s out of town, I’m doomed.
And finally,
No Daylight Savings Time
North Carolina went on Daylight Savings Time back in the spring of 1968.
Until I grew older, I thought that was the best decision ever.
Summer evenings when the light lingered until 9 p.m. provided more time for playing baseball, riding bikes, just being outside.
Now, I wish it would get dark earlier just so I can go to bed. Because I’m awake as soon as the sky begins to brighten well before dawn and once the eyes come open, no more sleep for me.
Also, I love to enjoy the views of the stars and the planets in the night sky. I can do that at 6 p.m. in December, but the sky doesn’t truly darken in June until nearly 10 p.m.
My wish is that when we “fall back” in November, we never spring forward again.
Such are an old man’s laments.
Yet I wonder, even as I write this, what it is my children will miss from their youth when they’re past 70.
Don’t know what it will be, but when they too are aged whiffs of flatulence, I’m sure it will be something.
With old folks, it always is.
Bill Poteat is editor emeritus. He may be reached at 828-445-8595 or bill@thepaper.media.
