Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories. With Marysville and Union County celebrating Bicentennial anniversaries in 2019 and 2020, respectively, these articles help depict what life was like in those early years.
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It was sometime in the late summer of 1947 when I walked home from Elwood Sawyer’s tennis court and found all of my family huddled around something in the living room. I had no idea what they were doing.
A friend of my brother-in-law had loaned him a television set to take home and watch that evening. He said there was going to be some sort of TV show broadcast that night, and it would give us a chance to see television for the first time. Wow, how great was that?
It was a small, table model set, with a round, black and white screen, maybe 12 inches in diameter. It was about time for the broadcast to start, so we began moving the antenna wire around the room. There was no picture on the screen, just a lot of snow.
Then, as we were moving that antenna wire, my dad yelled, “Stop … right there … don’t move.” And my mother and sister began to clap their hands and laugh as they looked at their very first TV image. The picture was pretty fuzzy, but we could make out a couple people who were talking. If we moved that antenna wire a bit, however, they all groaned, as the image disappeared.
As unimpressive as all this may sound, it got my dad pretty excited. He wanted to see more TV. There was no place in town that sold TV sets, and there were precious few in Columbus. But for the next few months, my dad made trips to Columbus, where he visited merchants who were offering TV sets.
He saw just about every brand of television set that was available. He compared them all, and concluded that one brand stood out as best. It was Raytheon. He visited a Raytheon dealer several times, and on one occasion he spoke with the sales rep, who happened to be in the store.
That salesman saw how enthused my dad was about Raytheon sets, and he offered him a Raytheon dealership. Of course, my dad had no retail store, but the Raytheon Company was looking for all the exposure it could get so he was granted a dealership, and he could sell the sets out of our house.
He ran a few ads in the Marysville Tribune, but most of his sales came from word-of-mouth. I remember a few people coming to our house to see the set running, but a lot of his customers saw a Raytheon set in Columbus, and then came back to Marysville to buy it from him.
Kids in our neighborhood sometimes came to our house when TV was being broadcast. In fact, sometimes there were kids I didn’t even know sitting on our living room floor, watching our set.
When my dad sold a set, he and I delivered it together. My job was to install the antenna on the roof of the house. In most cases, I attached it to a chimney. Then I ran a wire to a metal stake in the ground in case lightning ever struck the antenna.
Next, my dad handed me the wire from the TV set, and I connected it to the antenna. I then pointed the antenna toward Columbus. My dad watched the Image on the screen as I moved it back and forth. He yelled instructions to me, and when the image on the screen was best, I tightened the clamps to lock it in place. Then, he adjusted controls on the back of the set to get the best picture, and our job was done.
Before long, there were several merchants in town who offered TV sets. The one I remember most was the Farmer’s Supply Store at 227 East Fifth Street. At some point, the owner placed an R.C.A. Victor set in the display window. It ran continuously, and whenever something was being broadcast, it drew a crowd of people on the sidewalk.
In 1949, a few night baseball games were televised. I don’t recall if it was the Columbus Red Birds or the Cincinnati Reds. But when they were broadcast, the sidewalk in front of that store was packed with Marysville baseball fans. And they cheered as if they were actually at the game.
I watched part of one of those baseball games one night, and I caught myself cheering, and I didn’t even like baseball. I think it was then that I realized television was here to stay.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at bill@davidwboyd.com