When I was a kid, staying home from school on a sick day or snow day meant the thrills of daytime TV; a few thrills, anyway. Sick days were rare, but during my childhood days in Colorado, snow days were a part of life. We could count on at least a few each year, and sometimes we were fortunate enough to get three or four in a row during a big blizzard. It was on those days that I got to see the sought after television shows that we children missed while we were in school. Of course, we only had three channels, as these were the days prior to cable television, but it was enough. I looked forward to watching Bob Barker on The Price is Right (wow, he's still doing that show!) and many of the other game shows: Hollywood Squares, Joker's Wild, Family Feud, and the 20,000 Dollar Pyramid. The afternoons brought soap operas on two channels, which held no interest for me, but the third channel had a show called Dialing for Dollars.

Dialing for Dollars was a live show on which movies were shown. This of course was before HBO and all the 24 hour movie channels we have today. The only TV movies we could look forward to when I was a child were on occasional Sunday evenings and during Dialing for Dollars, which was on while I was in school. On Dialing for Dollars, the hostess sat at a desk with a telephone and a big paper tumbler filled with local phone numbers. She announced the movie to be shown and then on each commercial break she pulled a number out of the tumbler, dialed the number on her traditional dialed telephone, and if the person on the other end answered, they had the chance to name the movie being shown that day and possibly win the jackpot.

The show later went on to be a late night success and was spoofed on the comedy channel, SCTV. But during the early years, my mom was a faithful viewer, as was I on those rare wonderful days when I stayed home from school. Often the movie held no interest for me, but I sat faithfully next to the TV, coloring or reading, waiting for the phone to ring. A few times over the years, the phone actually rang while the hostess of Dialing for Dollars was trying to call someone. In a panic, I picked up the phone, only to find that it wasn't her.

The Dialing for Dollars lady never did call our number; or if she did, we weren't home and had missed the movie that day. Come to think of it, I never knew anyone who won the jackpot or even got a phone call from her. I wonder if the show was real or if it was a scam to simply get people to watch the movie and obviously tune in to the sponsored advertisements being shown. The world may never know, but I often think about sitting by the phone from 1:00 to 3:00 pm on those snow days and sick days, hoping to win thousands.