Odd Thoughts about growing up.

 Mr. Segerist, a neighbor was a TV repair men. I remember him coming over to the house to fix the TV and to help us get a better picture he would sometimes stick a wire hanger in the rabbit ears. Yeah, You want to know what rabbit ears are, and maybe even what a TV is? I'll answer the first one, because in 2018 when I am writing this rabbit ears are a relic of the distant pass, TV's not yet.
     Old time TV programs were beamed over the air from antennas on top of the Empire State building, later the first World Trade Center, both being the highest points from where the signal came from. To receive the signal you needed an antenna. Our original one on our black and white TV was put on the ceiling of the sun porch (now the front part of my Mom's bedroom) It had two positions you could put it. A slightly north/ south position and a slightly east/ west position. It had a clicker in the middle of the antenna that changed something sometimes making the picture better. If that didn't work, you switched the position of the antenna on the ceiling.
The first TV I remember was a black and white set with the channel selector on the side. The Selector had a dial around the outer edge of the selector, which was supposed to help make the picture better. It was used to fine tune the picture. Now a selector would turn the channels from one to the next. The stations we had were WCBS, channel 2, WNBC channel 4, WNEW channel 5, WABC channel 7, WOR channel 9,WPIX channel 11 and WNET channel 13. Channel 2, 4 and 7 aired original programs that started the week after Labor day in September and ran uninterrupted until the first week or two of June. No repeats, if you missed a show, you would never get the chance to see it, well you might get to see it after it had gone off the air and would be aired years later on channel 5, 9 or 11. Channel 9 used the saying, 'the best of all seasons' in the early 70's.
    The Yankees were on channel 11 in the sixties and seventies. They aired several dozen games a year. Same for the Mets who aired on channel 9. One Year, channel 11 aired a news program they were very proud of  that ended at 8 PM.The Yankees decided to switch starting time of the games from 8 pm to 7:30. WPIX threatened to join the games in progress. Everyone was how dare they, after a few weeks of threats by each side, they backed down.