My One Channel Childhood Universe

I was born just in time to catch the surge of TV's popularity in Canada.  This fascinating device was planted in the loving room of our family home in Taber, Alberta, just before I was born, making me the a part of the first generation to be fully exposed-- from diapers onward-- to television. When the question, "What's On TV?" came up, it referred to the programming on CJLH-TV, Channel 7.  It was the one and only channel we had. Life was simple then. There was no "Where's the remote?" and no complaints about 500 channels and nothing worth watching. No need to buy a TV Guide magazine for anything other than the articles. If you were a serious planner, you could check the one-channel listing in the Lethbridge Herald.

The Pope's Coronation (Pope John XXIII) adds some variety to this otherwise routine Wednesday/Thursday schedule from the Lethbridge Herald, November 5, 1958.

CJLH-TV, first day of broadcasting, Nov. 20, 1955.  Lethbridge Herald Collection, Galt Museum and Archives

There were a few adventuresome and elite individuals who would erect a giant UHF antenna on their roof and aim it at Sweetgrass Hill, just across the border in Montana, in order to pull in a couple of fuzzy channels from Great Falls. And by "pull in," I mean "pull in." Even after the guy wires for the antenna's giant mast had been erected. It was still an effort. It was like an electronic laboratory, involving a receiver box on top of the TV set and a lot of fine tuning. At my friends and relatives houses, I would watch with fascination and some impatience at as the user fiddled with the dial like someone at Cape Canaveral trying to locate a spaceship somewhere outside the earth's atmosphere-- and then guide it in. ("Come on, Rocky and Bullwinkle is starting in two minutes.") But for most of us, one channel and one small external antenna pointed West to Lethbridge was good enough. Or, at least our parents told us that.

The Ed Sullivan Show, Hockey Night in Canada, Walt Disney... You watched what was on or you didn't. Some shows were outstanding.  Some were simply watchable. The technology itself was main source of fascination, it seems.  This is probably why I watched Don Messer's Jubilee. The song "Goin' to the Barndance Tonight" still plays in my head.-- and I only recently learned that this show was a big deal across the country.  It was the #1 show in Canada next to Hockey Night in Canada and even more popular than Ed Sullivan. Pretty amazing

Speaking of pretty, there was Juliette, a classy lady with "high hair," blonde coloured, and who wore fancy, swanky outfits-- a high society variety show in my mind. But my mind was only six to ten years old at the time-- so who knows what the show was trying to be?  It came on after Hockey Night in Canada, which is one of the main reasons I watched it, I think. I remember taking my Saturday night bath between hockey periods-- so, I was all squeaky clean while watching this pretty, clean lady sing and introduce guests. Cool gig, I thought. And there was no channel alternative to tempt me.

"Let's Play Tiger" 1966 Esso TV Commercial promoting the "next big thing in Canadian Television: Colour

Colour TV would be just around the corner. Esso's "Let's Play Tiger" commercial was priming us for that with it's win-a-colour-TV contest.  (The TV spot's jingle is another sixties TV memory that still plays in my head.) The commercial promised us that this incredible technology would be coming soon to Canada and that by entering, we could be among the "select group of Canadians" to have it. Even with just one channel, that was mind-blowing enough.

The pure science of eating peanut butter

This just in... Peanut butter eaten from the jar is 10 times tastier than peanut butter consumed any other way.  This is a scientific fact verified by a team of squirrels.  Do you want to mess with squirrels?  No.  Of course not.  

If you're still a doubter, put your anti-scientific tut tuts between a couple of slices of bread and chomp down.  What do you taste?  Humble pie that tastes like bread.  Ordinary bread.  Would it taste better with peanut butter?  Of course. But doesn't a spoonful of sugar help the medicine go down? So, take away the medicine (that would be the bread) and just enjoy the "sugar."  Healthy sugar.  Not the white death kind.  The tanned, smooth kind that white women not only enjoy eating but want their skin to look like.

Disagreements with squirrels are best handled delicately.

It is a stretch to say many women and some men want to be the peanut butter?  No, we don't think so. Not the jar, of course, just the contents.  Nicely tanned and tasty.  A group of psychologist-squirrels is studying that phenomenon right now.  Stay tuned. Meanwhile, get the spoon.

Sweet shack for $10 million

Being proud of my small Alberta hometown, I've always been one to point out the "Made in Taber" (and Vancouver) label on Rogers Sugar Packets.  Many locals have made a good living working at the "factory." I don't know how many of those workers have much knowledge of the sugar king BT Rogers, Benjamin Tingley Rogers, who was the founder and the president of the BC Sugar Refinery.

Well, here's the real estate buzz in Vancouver that the folks back home might be interested in. BT had quite a handsome little "sugar shack" built in 1901.at corner of Davie and Nicola in Vancouver's West End.  It's known as the Gabriola Mansion, designed by one of Vancouver’s best known architects Samuel Maclure. The stately mansion house-turned-apartment-house-turned restaurant is now for sale for a cool $10 million.

Legend has it that al Capone slept there more than once. And it's haunted. But the scariest thing might be the price. $10 million is a lot of sugar and a lot of sugar beets.  I'll bet if it had been built in Taber, you could pick it up for a couple of mil.  So, before you good folks in Southern Alberta complain about the price of sugar you're putting in your coffee, think about what you might be paying for real estate in Vancouver.

PHOTO: WWW.GHOSTSOFVANCOUVER.COM

http://www.news1130.com/2014/12/09/gabriola-mansion-in-vancouvers-west-end-goes-on-the-market/