Before TV came along

This snapshot taken in the backyard of our house in Fairmount, probably in 1951 or 1952, is of my Uncle Joe Nichols (left) with his arm around his wife, Aunt Lillian. To her right is Uncle Walter and my Aunt Annie Nichols Gowin. (She married Uncle Walter after divorcing Bick Corker, her first husband, who had lived on the same block of Carrington Street as the Nichols children in the 1920s.) On the right is my mom, Mary Helen Nichols Dale. Standing in front of them are me and my sister Dianne Christine Dale. Note the rosebud on my lapel. I suspect the picture was taken by my father on Mother's Day.

Richmond's first TV station, WTVR TV, signed on in 1948. My Uncle Joe Nichols was a ham radio operator, and his interest in amateur radio led him to buy one of the first TV sets in the family. I can remember visits to his house in Richmond's far (then) West End when we would all gather around that small early TV to see who would be on "Toast of the Town," which was the original name for Ed Sullivan's Sunday-evening broadcast. (Uncle Joe had always been interested in radio. My mom used to describe the crystal receiver my Uncle Joe made in the 1920s, when radio broadcasts first began. Only one person at a time could listen through a set of headphones.) It would be about 1951 or 1952 before our family got its first TV set. (Later, in 1961, I landed a job at WTVR TV, but I'll save that story for another day.)

Before TV came along, families and friends visited back and forth frequently. For entertainment, they talked, told stories about the Great Depression and World War II, and played board games and card games. A treat for us kids was when the adults would play Monopoly, Parcheesi or Chinese Checkers with us. The adults would sometimes play cards. Sometimes the men would play penny-ante poker while the women talked. On other occasions, the men and women (but not the kids) would play a card game called Rook, which I never learned how to play.

However, it quickly became clear in those early days of watching TV at my Uncle Joe's house that once the TV set became a fixture in the living room, family visits turned into family TV-watching sessions. Board games, card games and just talking and telling family stories faded away.