In today's society, you will rarely find a home in the United States that has just a single television in it. Even a modest one-bedroom apartment usually contains two televisions - one in the living room and one in the bedroom. In bigger homes, I would not be surprised to find four or more TVs within the walls. This hasn't always been the case, of course. The relatively low cost of televisions and their central place in our culture has made them a very important home appliance. But I can remember a time in the not too distant past when even the solidly middle-class families could only afford one television.

The first real memories that I have of my family's television set are from the time when I was about 5 years old. We had a Sony Trinitron model, which was a rather large color television. Yes, back then we had to make a distinction between color or black and white televisions, since both were on the market. How do I remember our television brand so clearly? Because it was in the living room right next to the piano, which my parents made me practice for 30 minutes every single day even though I hated it. So I used to sit on the piano bench and stare at the digital clock on the television, convinced that I could get time to elapse just from sheer force of will. (Then, I learned how to open the control panel on the TV and actually change the clock, but that's a different story). The television's name was imprinted just below the clock, and the words subsequently became imprinted on my brain as I studied the TV rather than my sheet music.

Since we only had one television, my whole family had to try to agree on which programs to watch. When my father was home, it meant we watched what he wanted. My mother was a bit more democratic, however, so she usually let my brother or me choose the programming. But when it was just we kids at home, we could never decide on a mutually agreeable show. So we constantly fought over the television, and we actually came to blows a few times (not that we required much of an excuse to start hitting each other). My brother was older and bigger than me, so he usually won these fights. As a result, I rarely ever got to watch the television shows that I wanted to see the most.

Then a very fortunate thing happened, as far as I was concerned. My father took on a second job as a weekend security guard in an office building. He would work the overnight shift, which meant that nobody else would be in the building at all. He learned from other security guards that it would be ok for him to bring his own TV to watch in the guardroom as long as he completed his rounds and filled out his paperwork on time. So my father bought a new "portable" TV, which wasn't very portable at all by today's standards. The unit itself was big, bulky, and heavy, while the screen was probably only about 9 inches wide at the most. It was also black and white.

This was a significant purchase as far as my brother and I were concerned. My father would use the new TV only on the weekends, which meant that it would just be sitting idle for the other 5 days of the week. We each immediately begged for the black and white television to be kept in our own respective rooms during the week. Surprisingly, my father agreed to this; but he said that we would have to decide between ourselves how to share the TV. My brother thought the fairest way would be to have a race around the block, with the television set going to the winner as the grand prize. Of course he would say that, since he was faster than I was. I proposed a much fairer system whereby we would alternate control of the TV weekly. I would get the TV in my room one week, then my brother would get it the next week. My brother reluctantly agreed.

We followed this system for about a month. Then my brother discovered something that worked to his advantage: when I had the small black and white television in my room, I tended to stay in there and watch it. That meant that my brother had uncontested control of the big color TV, at least until my father wanted to watch something. My brother would much rather watch the big TV because it had cable channels, too. He eventually just started letting me have the black and white TV every week. It kept me out of his way and it allowed him to get his MTV and Nickelodeon fix without anyone bothering him.

So that's how I got my very first television set. I loved that old black and white unit with the plastic casing. Knowing that I could watch any show I wanted at any time I wanted gave me a real sense of independence and control. I spent many hours in front of that television, and I especially recall long summer nights staying up late to watch Cubs games when they played on the West Coast. I've had many televisions in my life since my childhood, but I will always have a special place in my heart for that first one.