State

Trade, related how a Republican storekeeper defended his party in an argument with a Negro farmer by declaring. “Remember, it was a Republican president who freed the slaves.” "Shore was." the farmer agreed, "and it was also a Republican president who frayed the sleeves." Vance County had an unusual court case in 1900 when a man was put out of his church for voting the Democratic ticket. He indicted the church officials, charging them with intimidation, but the Supreme Court denied his plea. It held that, while the man may have been humiliated, "he suffered no loss nor gain, nor was he in any way restrained of his liberty." In "Salt o’ Life." Howard Murry writes of fictional folks in Watagua County, including Uncle Old who had been "at a gatherin' up at Hills Mills one day las’ week. You know, most o’ them people are Dimicrats. me bein’ a Republican. A feller I knowed came up to me and said. How'ya. Uncle Old. how’ya feelinT I looked aroun’ at all them Dimicrats an' answered him. 'Son. I feel jus' like a grain o* rice in a barrel o' things rats drapped." Tom Henderson retaliated, describ¬ ing a situation when a Democrat wandered into a Republican banquet, and the toastmaster recognized him. Considering the humor of the situation, he invited the Democrat to return thanks to the Lord. Responding, the Democrat said. “I’m tempted not to make the invocation for two reasons. In the first place. I'm not given to public praying, and in the second place I'd rather the Lord didn't know' w here I am right now." "In the matter of choosing between the panics." Judge Robert W. Winston wrote in "It's a Far Cry." "I resembled a colored client of mine, Peter Chamberlain, who lived up in Granville County. One day Peter came into my office and said he wanted to get a di¬ vorce and wanted to know the price. After I mentioned the cost, about $50. he sat and talked of old times when we were boys: craps, persimmon beer, bullaccs, muscadines and other topics. Presently Pete arose to go without an¬ other word about divorce. So I asked him about it. ‘Boss man.' he said seriously, ’ever since you said it was gwine to cost fifty dollars. I been stu¬ dying it over, and to tell the God's truff. dev ain't no fifty dollars difference tw ixt them two gals” In the 1960s. The State publisher Bill Sharpe quoted a Watauga citizen’s Some of the younger generation probably thinks that television has been with us always, just like electric lights and fast food joints. But in fact, the ubiquitous tube is less than 35 years old in North Carolina, which strikes me as a relatively youthful age. I'V came to Tar Heels during the Iasi few months of 1949. and even then it came only to people who lived in the Greensboro or Charlotte areas. Station VVBTV in Charlotte and WFMY-TV in Greensboro went on the air about the same time. In the case of Greensboro, where I was working on the Greensboro Daily News, Channel 2 made its formal debut September 22. 1949. after sev¬ eral weeks of test patterns and some experimental shows. As you might expect, television had a considerable impact. You had to be fairly well fixed to afford a set: a Motorola console was on sale for $229.95. And how big was the picture tube? fen inches from cornci to corner. Admiral came out with another console that boasted a "much larger" screen, measuring all of I2'/.i inches. This one cost $399.95. A firm named Teletronix ran newspaper ads offering to install your set. Status Symbol The TV of that day was usually a large wooden piece of furniture, whether console or table model, with a tiny little screen set in the middle. It had the same channels. 2 through 13. that we now call the VHF band, but who cared about that? If you bought one in Greensboro, you turned it to Channel 2 and left it there. In the Charlotte area, it was Channel 3. Since the newspaper “owned" the station (in fact, the original broad¬ casting service was an early I NI sta lion, from which WFMY camel we tried to promote it every way we could. Soon, some bright newspaper fellow figured out that there was no Channel I. So he coined the pro¬ political sentiments: "VVc cooperate on church affairs, business enterprises and the promotion of our section, but wc take our politics straight." So have many other Tar Heels. Apparently. motional slogan "Channel 2. First in View." Most people in the Greensboro area could easily receive WFMY-TV with a rabbit ear antenna, and that's what many bought. Sometimes the antenna would be free with a $300 or $400 set. But television came to be a status symbol, and so lots of folks got roof antennas, saying that they gave better reception — - but conscious of the im¬ pression it made. Some houses had the ultimate in pretense: an outdoor antenna with no corresponding set in the living room. Nowadays we usually watch I V in an illuminated room. But in 1949 some people thought you could see it better in total darkness. One burglary was actually thwarted. A family was sit¬ ting in their darkened living room, watching a program with several in¬ vited friends, when an intruder opened a window and slipped into the room. He was quickly apprehended, overpowered by the group watching. Police said the man was "surprised." Television was "in" much as per¬ sonal computers are today. Folks would invite friends to I'V parties. Imagine a dozen or more people- gathered in a room to watch some black-and-w hite movie or new scast on a screen the size of an 8 x 10 photo¬ graph. It did happen. The Programs The new spaper did a steady job of making the whole thing seem worth¬ while. Guilford County School Supt. Flu gene Idol was interviewed on the possible benefits for school young¬ sters. A wire service story from out of town told about the U.S. Navy look¬ ing into the possibility of using televi¬ sion for training, involving "top pro¬ fessors" for the job. Yet the programming was far short of what we have today. Since the AT&T coaxial cable had not yet made IConiinued on page 47) How TV Came To N.C. tty l l(A\K JITTER THE STATE. SrPlfMOrn 19B«