Now I am all goofed up. I tried to upload another photo and it says it is corrupt, or doesn't recognize the format. That was after I deleted the photo I had on there, Geez...
I have been in Fargo working on the house, along with Tom, my brother. We have days and days, possibly weeks, of work left; you just don't undo 50 years of a house in a long weekend. Lots of memories, stuff and junk.
We found a thank you note from Charles Kerault, the CBS guy. It was typed and signed by him in blue ink. He thanked my Dad for the information he had sent him. We really didn't know what the info was, but I think it had to do with the book, "Travels with Charley" by John Steinbeck.
Mr. Keroult, had a show on TV called "On the Road with Charles Kerault." He travelled the lower 48 in a motorhome with stories of people, places and other things of note. So did John Steinbeck many years before. Mr Steinbeck did his tripping with his poodle dog, Charley, and wrote the book, "Travels with Charley." Steinbeck penned one of my favorite books, "The Grapes of Wrath."
At our house the Steinbeck book had special meaning, serious meaning. Let me explain. We had an old (not at the time, of course) huge cabinet TV. I think a "console" TV was yet to burst forth. Anyway, it stood about four feet tall and about two and a half feet wide. It had two door with ornate carvings, it looked like a short side by side wooden fridge. It was the first TV we had, and incidentally we had it from about 1953 until 1967 or so, until we got the color set in the summer of '67.
Inside this behemoth was a screen about 2 feet by 2 1/2 feet, a speaker box underneath of equal size, and a row of dials separating the two main items. The sound knob was on the left with a few little dials in the middle (one surely was horizontal hold, as that was always a nagging problem back in those days)and the channel changer on the right. The sound and channel changer were knobs about the size of a small cookie. Nowadays buttons and knobs are no bigger than an almond sliver or a tic tak. Go figure that design concept; have our fingers shrunk?
Over time these knobs became loose or worn from their factory snugness. At our house the channel changer was the touchy item. It needed just the right torque to give us the black and white shows we waited all week for. Back in the fifties and sixties one was much more resourceful in making things work. No trip to Walmart was in our future because the TV wasn't working at peak performance.
Now just under the row of nobs was a wooden ledge with an inch to inch and a half gap seperating the nobs and the speaker box. Something was needed to push the channel changer into full throttle, to bring in the picture. Guess what fit snuggly into that gap under the channel changer? None other than the venerable book, "Travels with Charley." That book was as important at our house as today's remote, a.k.a. the shooter.
My father, who did well at seeing the beyond, I'm sure thought this would be a nice yarn to respin for Mr. Kerault. After all both were Charley's, both had experience at touring the country, never mind that one was a dog. I guess we'll not know for sure if that was what the letter was in regard to. But as family lore goes, I think it will stick. I have yet to run into the book. I sure hope Dad didn't send it to him. That reminds me of MY Ole the Hermit carvings, and who he gave them to, but that is another story in the life of a blogger.
P.S. Coming soon, a photo.
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