I remember envying the house down the street because they had an outside antennae. I was the youngest, so guess who had to get up and listen to multiple people with conflicting directions about the 'ears'. Of course the other directives were, change the channel, change the volume, and lots of things that started with - since you're already up . . . . . .
when i was a kid, my brothers and i had to take turns 'turning the pole' which consisted of an adjustable pipe wrench and a 12" 1x2. we'd go out to the antenna and turned the pole with the wrench for either baton rouge, new orleans, mississippi, etc. someone inside would yell out "go back, keep going, stop!!" and the 1x2 would then hold it in place against the house.. until time to change the channel again on a clear day we could pick up mobile, ala and i thought that was exotic,,,, good times....
I literally laughed out load because even though we did not have an outside pole antennae, I can picture exactly how it worked. Of course there was the weather element also. My daughters always look at me like I'm crazy when I tell one of these how-things-used-to-work stories as good times. To them it would be an unbearable tragedy not to have 300 channels of perfect reception.
In 1972 I was a kid living in Gretna, LA (right across the river from nola). The Super Bowl - Dallas v Miami - was in nola, and NFL's 75-mile blackout rules actually applied back then. My dad was so obsessed with seeing the game that he went out and bought an antennae that was about 30 feet tall and could pick up Baton Rouge TV stations. The memorable thing for me about it was telling my friends at school that week that we would watch the Super Bowl on channel 9 and they laughed out loud, because in our little world the only TV that existed was the stations you could see locally.
Yep, its a small world. Lived on a 'D' street as well, Dover. Our house was on the Terry Parkway side of Dover roughly halfway between the intersections of Diana/Dover and Deerfield/Dover. Lived there in 82 and 83. My wife grew up in that house. I used to walk to mass at Christ the King and sometimes we'd take Deerfield, and sometimes we'd take Diana. It was about the same distance.
