Could you imagine the excitement that must have filled my father's house the day that the family's first TV set was to be delivered? It was 1951 and my father, then five-years-old was sitting in his living room anticipating the moment that the delivery truck would pull up to the small house where he lived. How amazing that must have been, to know that for the first time he was going to be able to see all the characters that he had heard and grown to love for years. Only being able to picture them in his mind, he was now going to meet them on a whole new level. Were his friends on the radio going to look the same once they were placed on television? How is the picture going to be, clear or hard to see? These were some of the questions that raced through my father's head that day.
             "It's here, it's here, Mom!" screamed my father when he saw the men in the blue shirts get out of the truck. "Where do you want it Mamma?" Without hesitation my grandmother told them to place it in the living room, right next to the front door. As the men unloaded the set they revealed a monster of an appliance in comparison to some of the TV sets people own today. It was a large wood box with a screen in the middle, it almost looked like another piece of furniture, blending in with the coffee and end-tables.
             My father had waited a long time for this moment to come. For a while before this day my father was aware of the fact that many of his neighbors were getting TV sets in their homes. His family was one of the last to jump on the bandwagon. Not because they did not want a TV set but because they could not afford one. My father said the fact that it was a while before they got their TV set "gave a clear picture of where they stood in the economic strata." He remembers clearly that "the guy next door, who was better off than [them] had one i
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