by Lukas Paterson, JOU 1005 student

It’s a warm sunny day here in Buffalo, New York. July 19th, 1954, That’s All Right was just released, and our friends are all here screaming the songs to the new Elvis Presley record. The little box is quite loud for our time. It makes it seem like Elvis is singing right in front of us. Anyways, I’m the only one in my friend group with the record, so we are going to head down to Roxy’s later so they can buy his record also.

These are selling for $2 over there. Isn’t that outrageous? I ended up buying the Purple People Eaters album also while we were there, I like their music. I have a bunch of records actually. Elvis is obviously my favorite, but I have Sha Boom, Ricky Nelson, and Buddy Holly. Some of my friends’ parents are pretty strict with the music they listen to. My parents don’t care what I listen to (well that is as long as it’s quiet); they even bought me my little record player and I love it. Anyways, that’s how my morning went.

I went downstairs when my friends left to see what my father was doing. Reading the newspaper of course. He loves reading those things every morning, mainly the Buffalo News and Batavia Daily but sometimes the Buffalo Currier Express also. Me? I get bored of all that news. Who cares? It’s all local nothing exciting happens around us, but he likes to read about that stuff because the stories are always honest, truthful, and courageous he says. I just like it for the comics and sports.

After he’s done reading the paper I’ll read every section I can find about this stuff, especially superheroes and baseball. After I was done reading that my dad had already left for the rest of the afternoon for work, so my mom, brother, and I went to sit down and watch the tv. “(T)elevision has played such an integral role in modern life that, for some, it is difficult to imagine being without it”(The Evolution of Television pg 426). I still listen to the radio but the tv is so much better, I don’t have to use my imagination anymore to listen to a story (I do wish the screen was a little bigger however).

The tv has definitely changed my home life though. Every Sunday we sit down to watch Shirley Temple after church as a family, and Superman of course, but sometimes there are days when we watch tv several days in a row. We finally got a colored tv which was super exciting, like going to the movies are a very small scale. The connection is pretty decent, it only gets static when a plane flies over our house or a storm is happening. I’m not sure how much it cost, my mother says it is rude to ask about their financial situation, but I know that it was not cheap because I remember them saving a while for it. We watched that for a while until it was time to get ready for dinner.

My dad isn’t often home with us for dinner or even the rest of the night. He was always working on the farm when he wasn’t home during the day and at night worked for Quinn Industries and helped with machine work for companies. I didn’t get super close with my dad because of this but it was fun to be with him when he was home. After dinner, I went to get ready for bed and headed to my room to listen to the radio.

I really like the stories they would play on here. You could find any genre to listen to but I like comedy, dramas, music, and thrillers. The stories aren’t always clear, there’s sometimes static and the words cut out off and on, but I enjoy what I can get. “(T)uning in to a favorite program at a certain time became a part of listeners’ daily routine because it effectively forced them to plan their lives around the dial” (The Golden Age of Radio pg 328).

I’m going to listen to Bing Cosby tonight since this is when the story comes on during the day, but I don’t have to worry about it being shut off mid-story this time since my dad is not home tonight. I must go to bed early when he is. I don’t often listen to anything else on the radio besides stories, but there is something going on right now called War of the Worlds. It scares many people because it comes on as a national warning making people think we are being invaded.

This is the only big story I’ve heard recently since I don’t listen to much of the news, but I know my parents have talked a lot about it. Apparently, it’s not real because no Martians have ever invaded us. So anyways, that was my day, more eventful than most, especially when it’s not summer and we have school. There are no tv’s or radios in school, all I get is a pen and paper making this a lot more fun than usual I would say.

It’s crazy to me how far media has evolved these days. Just from having black and white tv’s to now having our programs in color. That’s amazing! And now there’s something called FM radio with a lot fewer commercials and the sound is so much better. I wonder what Media will look like when I’m older, will there still be newspapers? TV’s? Radios? Movies? Well, I’ll have to wait to find out I guess.

All I hope is that I can finally watch tv without sitting right in front of the screen because WOW these things are small.

 

 

Photo by Jonathan Rivera on Unsplash