Days Gone By - Memory

Memories of Days Gone By

B&W TV Commercial

By

B.D. Adams ©2017

   For those who remember photo albums filled with B&W (black and white) square photos with beveled edges, then you’re around my generation. It is amazing what we remember.

   When I was fairly young, we had a B&W Zenith television that sat on a rolling cabinet. Actually, it stayed in the living room – never rolled anywhere except to have the floor vacuumed underneath.

   Color TVs were way too expensive -- so said my parents. I didn’t mind, just having a TV to watch all the cartoons and kid programs was a treat. Like Mighty Mouse, Popeye and Bugs Bunny along with Hopalong Cassidy, Lassie, and Sky King, to name a few.

   With these memories of B&W televisions, this wonder came to my mind’s eye. How do I remember my past? Is it in color or in B&W?

   The first time I ever saw “The Wizard of Oz” in color, I was mesmerized!! So wondrous!!

   One thing I remember the most, along this line, was a TV commercial that advertised color TVs. By Zenith, by chance, and the commercial was in B&W:

            The announcer begins – “Zenith Televisions are ahead of the time … blah … blah … blah.”

            As the announcer continues his spiel, the camera pans back to show a football field, empty with no players, just the field with the uprights at the far end zone.

            Then the announcer hits the viewers with a definite guilt trip that no parent wants, as he asks,

            “Do you want your children to grow up thinking football is played on gray grass?”

   As a child, and then as an adult, that commercial rather stuck with me. When my son was born and when I got older, I began using color film in my dinky Kodak camera. Of course, as I became a pro photographer, color film was primarily used.

   I asked my son once how he remembered his world as a little boy – I had taken photos of him in B&W, as well as color. With evolution, he remembers his life in color.

   Nice how those memories grow.

Son, Jacob, and Mom, Brandy 1985