From Black-and-White to Split Screen

 

I rushed home from grammar school along a dirt path behind the parking lot, through the ravine we called the “snake pit,” up the other side, to the road in front of our house. The thought of a long slithery black snake lying in wait got me to the macadam in no time. 

Our gravel driveway curved in an “S” around the evergreens my dad had planted and back over the brook where he’d built the bridge. Mom had already tuned into the Yankees’ first game of the World Series when I barged through the door, breathless. “Hi, honey! It’s just started,” she said. “Take off your sweater and give me your lunch box.” She wasn’t really a fan, but she knew that I, like all my friends in southern Connecticut, was a true believer in the miraculousness of the Yankees.

Our  picture was black and white and a little fuzzy. Rabbit ears reached toward the ceiling, but I was grateful to get anything on the screen. I was in charge of my sister, a toddler who played on the floor at my feet while Mom started supper. Dad soon appeared from the NYC commuter train, and while he prepared a Manhattan cocktail for my Mom and himself, I gave him a rundown of the game.

The Yankees won the Series, as they always did - one of the reasons I became a Yankee hater after I married a Red Sox fan from Massachusetts.

We’d been married a year in 1966 when Charley was assigned to Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon, Viet Nam, during the War. When he returned in ‘67, we landed in Warner Robins, Georgia. It could have been the moon – we didn’t care, as long as we were together. For me, it was the moon, landing there directly from graduate school in NYC, where I'd spent my time while he was away. In Macon County, Georgia, no liquor was served in public establishments; my junior-high students crossed the street if a black classmate approached on the same sidewalk; wooden paddles were used by the assistant principal for discipline; and the laundromat’s window declared, “Whites Only.”  

The antenna on our T.V. could only pick up three stations. “The Beverly Hillbillies” was on every single night in living color. We attached tinfoil to the rabbit ears to get a picture and separated the two, turning them in different directions till we could make out human figures. “Damn it! The Red Sox have a chance to win the Series!” Charley yelled. “Get more tinfoil, honey. I’ll keep turning the ears.” We were able to watch the Red Sox lose in seven games to the Cardinals.

In 1975, we'd settled in Rhode Island and still used rabbit ears with tinfoil, but the channels were many. The Sox were in game six of the World Series, down 2-3 to the Reds. Eventually Carlton Fisk hit a ball that his body language nudged fair, as he left home plate.

“It’s curving, it’s curving,” the announcer yelled. “It hit the foul pole! It’s a home run! The Red Sox have tied the Series!” Thanks to the tinfoil, we’d bent our bodies to the right side of the foul pole along with Fisk. Participating in his homer made the upcoming loss to the Reds easier to swallow.

Now we have a cable box, a 70” flat-screen television, splt screens, two remotes, and a device to record so we can watch later. “You have to press the top left white button first,” Charley tells me, demonstrating. “That will bring in the cable, too. But if it doesn’t, I’ll get the cable company to give us a boost.” Once the wad in the pitcher's mouth and the drool on his beard pop in with living color, we are sitting in the box seats behind home plate.

After the game, I hit the “Guide” button again to select a movie. “We don’t get Netflix here in Massachusetts,” Charley said. “We only subscribe in Florida.”

“Well, what channels do we get?”

He hands me the list of channels with stars next to the ones we subscribe to. There are only three for movies. “Why don’t we look into getting more movies here? These three never seem to have anything we’re interested in or we've watched them already.”

Charley responds that since we’re only in Massachusetts four-and-a-half months a year, it would be a waste of money to add more subscriptions. “All that’s really important are the Sox and Pats,” he says.

 I choose “Pretty Woman” for the third time.