of a Southern Yankee BY DAMIAN DESMOND
On A Good Day
My
earliest childhood memories revolve around my Italian grandparents in upstate New York. For the first six years of my life, they filled the roles of mother and father. I’ve never been told exactly why my parents sent me to live with them, but I did eventually get a glimpse of why later on…. Many of my memories involve sitting on my grandfather’s lap in the evenings and watching TV. I loved to hear him laugh during shows like All in the Family, Three’s Company, F-Troop, M.A.S.H., and a myriad of other late 70s shows. During the summer, the Yankees took precedence. My grandfather did not miss watching a game, and I grew to love America’s pastime in my grandparents’ living room. During the day, when my grandfather was away at work, the voices of Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, and Burt and Ernie emanated from the TV set. I was a child of the Sesame Street generation. Later in the morning, my grandmother and I would watch Bob Barker give away fabulous prizes and money on The Price is Right. I guess you could say that television played a fairly large role in my early life. At least, I feel like I learned a lot from it, no matter what was on. My life took a dramatic turn in 1979 when I moved to Virginia to live with my parents. Eight months later, I was being adopted by a couple I’d never met. The attempt to be reunited with my parents failed miserably. My new parents lived fairly simple lives (they weren’t Amish by any means, but it was pretty close). The house was situated in the mountains of western Virginia. Surrounded by woods, trails, creeks, and a pond at the end of the lane, the new environment proved to be very healthy for a seven-year-old boy who just went through a traumatic ordeal. I quickly became the type of child who spent more time outside during my waking hours than in. Unlike today, we only owned one small TV set. It sat in the den on the first floor of our home. To turn the TV on, one had to actually walk up to it and turn this thing called a “knob.” To change channels (and when I say “channels,” I mean TWO channels on a good day), one had to get up from the sofa and turn another knob. In fact, there were two knobs for the channels—one for VHF and one
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