[AT] OT: Flashback - Early Farmers Building County Roads

[Carl Tatlock]

Dean VP wrote:

>Our first Black and White TV's hit our NW IA area in 1951. The first one was
>in our little town's restaurant. On Saturday night there would be a crowd of
>people standing around watching the snow drift in and out on the screen. At
>first the closest TV transmitting station was over 90 miles away in Omaha,
>NE. Pretty lousy reception. When Sioux City, IA and Sioux Falls, SD came on
>line, then TV's started to sell well. 
>
>I don't remember well now when we got our first color TV in CA. But I know I
>resisted it quite long due to the high maintenance requirements of the early
>color TV's. Probably mid to late 60's. 
>
>Dean A. Van Peursem
>Snohomish, WA 98290
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Dean, and all, President Truman made the first coast-to-coast program in 
1951-- an address from the UN in SanFranciso to far-away New Emgland.  
That was when TV became network national, instead of regional.  My late 
FIL was a young engineer at the Bell Labs in NJ in 1927 and had the job 
of laying cable and wires around a studio in New York when the first 
long distance ( Washington DC to NYcity) transmission was made.  
President Hoover participated.  It was a mechanical televion  that 
utilized a spinning disk-- the cathode tube had not been invented yet- 
and the "screen" was a neon glow-lamp and the image appeared as tiny 
dots of light on the 2x2.5 inch "tube".   He told that story for years 
and nobody believed him that he had seen television demonstrated so 
early-- but the story appeared in a Sarasota paper in the 70's and he 
carried the clipping around as proof. 
Actually, it was a Scot, John Logie Baird, who really "invented" 
television-- in 1925.   Color appeard in the US in 1929.  By 1939 TV was 
practical-- demonstrated at the World's Fair-- and in limited use.  
Wartime slowed civiliam use, until '46, and now we have all the ads you 
ever want to see in huge long plasma screen an inch think.   My, ain't 
science wonderful.  One hour program= 25 min of ads.  Sometimes I'd 
rather see Herbert Hoover....                        Carl in VT, still 
on rabbit ears....