....It is so unusual to realize you actually grew up at a time when COLOR TV was just coming onto the scene...By no means were the O'Leary's the first ones with a color set...The original color sets were very expensive...and like most people...we could only flock to the TV section at Sears to actually catch a glimpse of what all the buzz was about...
...Eventually, my Dad had landed a policeman's discount from the Zenith factory out in Melrose Park along route 294...He brought it home around Noon on a Saturday in the early fall of 1968...I'm guessing...He did not tell anybody...It was going to be a huge surprise...
...I think he got one of my brothers to help carry down the huge, heavy, brown Zenith box and began to unwrap it slowly...It was a beautiful set...It was actually a nice mahogony wood casing with about a 24 to 27'' screen...It was truly top notch all the way...We connected the antennae wires in the back and then slid it back into place against the wall, facing the couches in our basement...
My Dad turned it on and.....WOW....It was so magically bright and colorful that it made your eyes water...You would just be wiping away tears as you tried to adjust to the intensity of what you were viewing...It was so dazzling...just nothing comes close to those first initial moments...I guess for the younger generation...you could make a comparison to it being like seeing HD for the first time. The Zenith motto back then was: The Quality Goes In Before The Name Goes On...A very catchy yet very relevant statement...They boasted of their advances in technology to make the colors pop out in Technicolor...which was some kind of higher resolution...unknown to TV's up to that point...
...But this was way, way beyond that to our eyes...I know for certain...the first thing we saw on our new color tv was a college football game between Michigan and Ohio State on ABC with Keith Jackson doing the commentary...It was pure sports heaven...
...Days would pass and you actually found yourself turning off your old favorite tv shows that were being still run in black and white and tuning into something projecting out the colors...Eventually, this phase would end and you got used to flipping back and forth between color and black/white programming...
....I can remember going up to Knollwood for the summer and being stuck watching our old black/white set up there for 3 months straight months...Then, when you finally arrived back on the South Side...I remember running downstairs immediately to catch a glimpse of that new color tv and the love affair began all over again...
...So there you have it...I know for some of you this brings back the memory of your first color tv...and to others much younger...it is glimpse of what new technology was just emerging during our era...It is pretty darn funny...no matter how you look at it...
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