Comments on: Briefing Mormon Families on the New Media: Television, 1959

By: Left Field

Left Field — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:34:08 +0000

Take the phone into another room? In 1959? Until sometime in the Ford Administration, we always had one black rotary phone attached to the wall with a 3-foot receiver cord. But the phone was always in the kitchen or in a hallway, so interference with the television wasn’t a problem anyway.

By: Michelle Glauser

Michelle Glauser — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:41:01 +0000

This post got a guffaw out of me. My tip: don’t own a TV.

By: Maurine

Maurine — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:06:08 +0000

Growing up, I lived next door to my grandpa. We treated both houses like our own. When grandpa decided to get a TV–a small black and white thing (my parents weren’t financially able to get one), my little brother asked grandpa which house he was going to put it in.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:12:58 +0000

I know I used to wish that my sisters could install “earphones” on the piano, so they could practice without the rest of us being subjected to the noise!

By: Bruce Crow

Bruce Crow — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:05:23 +0000

Come on! Doing your Home Teaching with the TV still on was part of the process. Wasn’t it?

By: Mex Davis

Mex Davis — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:33:17 +0000

Wow, for some of us older Saints this brings back memories. We we a military family and many of our bases didn’t have TV, just some base sponsered programs kind of like those old local cable shows. I remember you couldn’t just run home to watch TV because it didn’t start till late afternoon. You would set there and watch the test pattern. TV also went off at midnight with the flag waving and the nation anthem or something close to that. Best of all it was in black and white, so cool. We kids were the remote control. We had rabbit ears with tinfoil and all. I remember getting a lesson from my parents about proper TV manners.

By: Researcher

Researcher — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:00:55 +0000

Oh my. I’m not the only one whose parents avoided all this drama and training in asociality (is that a word?) by doing away with the television altogether? Of course, that just meant that we snitched each others’ library books.

By: Hunter

Hunter — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:50:16 +0000

“Don’t leave a visitor standing at the door ungreeted except by a call from across the room, half ignoring him in the hope that maybe he will leave so he will not disturb the television program you are viewing.”

Who knew this was bad behavior? I mean really!

By: Bookslinger

Bookslinger — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:38:05 +0000

Steve G.: Before leaving one’s seat, one had to call “seat saved.”

By: Steve G.

Steve G. — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:56:00 +0000

It seems that getting a 2nd 3rd or 4th tv in the home would eliminate most of these problems.

I love the picture of the kid dragging the sibling from the couch withthe sibling holding on for dear life. This is exactly how tv watching was practiced in my house growing up. If only we’d had that Ensign article.

They are missing one rule of ettiquette which is what to do when a person gets up for a minute and his seat is immediately taken by another. In my childhood that’s usually what started the sibling pulling scene.