It was once filled with magic

I remember the dawn of television. I remember chairs lined up in an appliance store so people could sit and gawk at the pictures coming from this new wonder. I remember black-and-white pictures so small that some sets had a magnifying glass in front of the screen. I remember Tuesday night trips with my family to the local social club, where I could be in paradise watching Uncle Miltie while chomping on a nickel’s worth of pistachio nuts. I remember a friend named Bobby Kaminski, whose family was the first in the neighborhood with a TV, inviting me over to watch “Howdy Doody” and me wondering how he could ever leave the house with this magic box in residence. I remember when only three channels were available, and those channels showed a test pattern, or nothing, for much of the day.

I remember tri-colored transparent plastic sheets that people taped over their screens to give the illusion of color TV. I remember announcements that "the following program will be broadcast in compatible color."

I remember watching TV for almost three days straight when John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald were shot to death. I remember watching hours of 9/11 coverage, then turning off the TV with a sigh and playing some soft music instead. I remember the tears in the eyes of many audience members when on election night Barack Obama proclaimed to a Chicago crowd, “Change has come to America.” The TV screen was now giant and wide, the picture was in incredible-looking high definition, and the number of channels to watch was almost uncountable.

Yes, I remember the dawn, and fruition, of television. I also remember life before TV, but that’s a story for another day.

Speaking of TV, one of the dumbest shows ever was certainly “Superman” starring George Reeves. To this day, I cannot understand why Lois Lane, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, etc., never made the connection between Clark Kent disappearing and Superman arriving. I mean, those people worked for a great metropolitan newspaper, didn’t they? Oh ... maybe that’s why they never figured it out.

And speaking of newspapers, the Boston Globe appears on the brink of taking away lifetime job guarantees. I guess a lifetime just ain’t what it used to be.

When I was maybe 4 years old, I was gathering flowers (most likely dandelions) in a field when a couple of old ladies walked by. “Oh, isn’t that sweet," said one. “He’s making a bouquet for his mommy.” But she was wrong: I hadn’t even thought about what I was going to do with the flowers. I was just collecting them because collecting things for no reason is what I did, and do.