It's Not Easy Being Green

The other day I was reading an article about ways to save money. The author was noting that today most families have multiple TVs with one being at least 35 inches and more cable channels than you can keep track of. She wrote that in 1970 her family had a black-and-white 27 inch TV. "A" TV. One. With three channels and a public television channel picked up via a rooftop antenna. Remember those days? We got ABC, NBS, PBS, sometimes CBS, and when the weather was just right sometimes TBS. (We lived about a three hour drive away from the TBS studios.)

When my father bought our first color television set, he brought it in after work to set it up. I was on the floor, cross legged, watching The Brady Bunch.

“Can you wait until it’s over?”

“The picture will be in color.”

“You mean like our home movies?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can you do it during the commercial?”

But switching out the sets took more time than the commercial did. And when the picture was back on, I’d missed prime viewing of Peter Brady. Bobby was the closest to my age but much too much like the other boys my age. Greg was much too old and much too BMOC. Peter was just right, just geeky enough to be human and just average enough to be your regular Joe.

Even worse than missing seeing Peter onscreen was seeing Peter as a Martian. He was green! Everything was green.

My father adjusted some knob and voila! He wasn’t green anymore. He was red. More adjusting. No longer red, now wavy.

“Daaaaa-dee!”

The actual episode is lost in the dark recesses of my mind. The memory of missing out on Peter is still there. Even though my infatuation with Peter is gone, I’m not too enthused with going back to just three (and on a good day five) channels. Saving money is good. But sometimes you just need a good Brady Bunch fix from TV Land.