The RCA Lyceum, vintage:1980

This RCA television was a professional model and purchased in 1980 through a family member who was in the electronics business. I recall how he struggled to get it out of his car to “deliver” it. I had seen its brother in the art department of a nearby university when I was taking sabbatical studies. That was 2001. We saw “Tron.” Tron was a futuristic  sci-fi movie that was released soon after I got that RCA television. Now they are both outdated.

Thirty-four years later, the television is still in my living room. And still working. But here’s the rub:

New Yorkers have received a notice from the city: “Starting January 2015, it’s illegal to discard electronics in the trash.” Anything electronic would have to be brought somewhere, donated, mailed back. The television is so heavy and so massive, there’s no way it could be be picked up by less than two Sumo wrestlers; I can’t see myself schlepping it to donate it or “recycle” it somewhere.

It’s electronic blackmail, I tell you.  All along my sanitation pick-up route, discarded televisions are lying at the curb, some likely still working, waiting for the last round-up. Everyone will, or has already replaced them with flat screens that are so thin the top cannot be used as a shelf. And these televisions will likely be lying at the curb in the next five years. It’s a plot. The end of the era. People are now getting high on high def; they tell me they already own several and that I won’t believe the difference in clarity, that there’s no other way to go.

“But my television still works!” I plead. They don’t care; they’ve been won over and have no mercy. They are already living in the Tron mainframe.

I can remember the televisions I’ve had in my life, they were like old friends. Black and white televisions in big mahogany cabinets: My first Winky Dink drawings on the plastic screen that covered the glass. Then the 1950’s–  blonde wood, a more streamlined modern case with–gasp–a push button on/off knob.  Eventually, there was COLOR. My father was into electronics, now that I think about it, and color was a big deal. When I left home, all I had was a dinky black and white with rabbit ears.

The 1980 RCA was MY first substantial real television. Now it’s old enough to be my child and it’s leaving home. Actually, not of its own volition.

Mom with the very first television. Late 1940’s, Stuyvesant Town

I must admit: there was something very exciting about moving along with progress. Once you’ve seen Lucille Ball’s hair in color, how can you ever go back? And how is it that Edith Bunker and Carol Burnett also had RED hair? How would I know that with a black and white television?

Now what will be exciting will be such clear and vibrant programs that Doctor Who might just reach out and toss me into the Tardis, and just forget about Breaking Bad; I mean that would be beyond what I could tolerate, talk about red.

I must admit that there is a new Samsung flat screen in a box, awaiting hook-up. I guess I’m ready.

From Winky Dink to Tron

.