Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (17 page)

“I’m taller than I was yesterday,” said Tom gruesomely.

“Well, that certainly took the wind out of my sails,” said Tom disgustedly.

“I’m waiting to see the doctor,” said Tom patiently.

“I have no idea,” said Tom thoughtlessly.

“I have diamonds, clubs, and spades,” said Tom heartlessly.

“I can’t walk. My leg hurts too much,” reported Tom lamely.

“I wonder if there’s a number between seven and nine,” said Tom considerately.

“I’m the butcher’s assistant,” said Tom cuttingly.

“Don’t you have any oranges?”

Tom asked fruitlessly.

“Someday, I want to teach at a university,” Tom professed.

“I can’t remember anything from the last 24 hours,” said Tom lackadaisically.

“Your Honor, you’re crazy!” said Tom judgmentally.

“Elvis is dead,” said Tom expressly.

“I can take photographs if I want to!” Tom snapped.

“Congratulations, you graduated,” said Tom diplomatically.

“I love mustard on my hot dogs,” said Tom with relish.

“I hate this Chardonnay,” Tom whined.

“Has my magazine arrived?” Tom asked periodically.

“Stop, horse! Stop!” cried Tom woefully.

“I think that wasp is in pain,” Tom bemoaned.

“Look! Here comes a big black bird,” Tom crowed.

“I love the taste of orange peels,” said Tom zestfully.

“I’ve only enough carpet for the hall and landing,” said Tom with a blank stare.

Uncle John’s grandpa had a motto for success in business: Find a need and fill it. That’s more difficult than it sounds, because you have to be in the right place at the right time…but as these folks prove, it does work
.

O
N THE AIR
Today, almost 90% of American viewers get their television signal by paying for a subscription service—either cable or satellite. The days of rabbit ears and rooftop antennas are nearly gone. Cable TV has become a $75 billion a year business, but it started out as the hobby of small-town tinkerers and entrepreneurs.

Back in the late 1940s, television was the latest technological marvel. In those days, TV sets had to be within 50 or 75 miles of a broadcast station in order to receive a clear signal. Since there were so few stations—just 98 in the entire country in 1950—the only people who could watch TV were those who lived in and around major cities. That also meant they were the only people who had a reason to buy a TV.

Small-town appliance dealers hoping to get in on the lucrative new business became the pioneers who brought television to rural America. They created the first cable systems in the late 1940s and early ’50s, calling them “Community Antenna TV,” or CATV. Though cable TV appears to have been developed simultaneously by several different people in several different places, the story of John Walson of Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, exemplifies the experience.

Walson started out working for Pennsylvania Power & Light (PP&L), running electrical cables from utility poles into people’s houses and repairing electrical appliances—which, in those days, were leased from the power company. When PP&L decided to get out of the appliance business, Walson saw an opportunity and took advantage of it by opening an appliance store and showroom in Mahanoy City.

He began carrying television sets in 1947, but didn’t sell very
many at first. The problem: The nearest broadcast stations were 80 miles away in Philadelphia, and Mahanoy City, located in a valley and surrounded by mountains, just couldn’t get any reception. He did have potential customers—the nearby towns of Frackville, Volcan, and Hazeton were built on mountaintops and could tune in a few stations, but those people wanted to see the product demonstrated before they were willing to shell out $500 for a brand-new 121½" black-and-white TV.

So Walson bought a piece of property on top of a local mountain, where he fixed an antenna to the end of a 70-foot utility pole. If a customer was serious about purchasing a set, Walson would drive them up the hill and show them how well it worked by plugging it into his giant antenna. This was better than nothing, but what he really wanted was TV reception in his showroom. There was only one thing he could do to get it.

First Walson bought a mile of U.S. Army surplus cable and a bunch of set-top amplifiers designed to boost television signals. Then, in the summer of 1948, he set out to connect his store to the mountaintop antenna. He had to modify the amplifiers and insert them into the line every 500 feet to maintain the strength of the signal, but when he was done, he had all three Philadelphia stations playing in his store window—with speakers wired up outside so that locals could stand out on the sidewalk and fully enjoy the first television reception in town.

People soon asked him to run the cable to their houses—and it was obviously in his best interest to do so: If they could get channels, they would buy TVs. So he designed a new signal amplifier and began making improvements to the system. (One early problem: Walson’s customers lost their signal whenever it rained. He solved that by upgrading his original army surplus cable.)

Walson soon had hundreds of customers in Mahanoy City and the surrounding communities. His original subscription rate: $2.00 a month (plus a onetime $100 installation fee). Over the years, he continued to build his business, expanding into other towns and improving his antenna technology to capture more stations. His
company, Service Electric Cable, is still in business and is now run by his children. Among their claims to fame: In 1972 they were the first cable system in the United States to carry HBO.

•
Ed Parsons:
A radio technician who sold and serviced ship-to-shore systems in the port town of Astoria, Oregon, Parsons began building his CATV system when his wife announced that she wanted to be able to watch television. He managed to tune in a Seattle station on Thanksgiving Day 1948 by placing an antenna on the roof of the tallest hotel in downtown Astoria. By 1950 he had over 100 customers. Rate: $3.00 a month with a $125 installation fee.

•
Robert Tarlton:
Pennsylvania was the early center of CATV. Not far from where John Walson built his system in Mahanoy City, Tarlton organized several appliance dealers into an investment group to form the Panther Valley Television Company in 1950. Two years later, Tarlton was among the group of CATV operators that formed the National Community Television Council in nearby Pottsville.

•
John Campbell:
A movie theater projectionist who learned electronics in the U.S. Navy, Campbell brought CATV to Texas after reading an article on the Pennsylvania systems in 1951. Since he didn’t have enough money to travel to Pennsylvania and study the existing CATV facilities, he simply designed and built his own from scratch. He charged a $95 installation fee and $3.00 a month for service. The installation fee became his seed money: “We would wire up one block, hook up five people, get the $95 each, and go buy some more cable.”

•
Bill Daniels:
To bring CATV to Casper, Wyoming, Daniels had to become the first cable operator in the United States to use microwave transmitters. His system went on the air in 1953 and carried four Denver stations across 230 miles of mountain ranges. The added technological difficulties translated to higher costs: $7.50 a month. It also meant less expansive service. Even though the system brought in four stations, it could transmit only one at a time. So how did Daniels decide what to show? He mailed ballots to his customers every month so they could vote on which channels they wanted to watch at what times.

The entertainment industry trade journal
Variety
has a “slanguage” all its own. To assist the “aud,” here’s a glossary to help make sense of words like…“aud.”

CRIX.
The collective term for critics

MELLER.
Melodrama

CLICK.
A movie that does good B.O. (box office)

SPROCKET OPERA.
Film festival

BLURB.
TV commercial

PERF.
Acting performance

TUBTHUMP.
Promote heavily

AYEM.
Morning

ANKLE.
To quit or be dismissed from a job, without necessarily specifying which

MOUSE.
The Walt Disney Co. (also called Mouse House)

LENSE.
To shoot a movie

AUD.
Audience

PERCENTER.
An agent

BIRD.
Satellite

KUDOCAST.
Awards show

DISKERY.
A record company

ZITCOM.
A sitcom aimed at teens

FEEVEE.
Pay TV

DUCATS.
Movie or concert tickets

HOOFER.
Dancer (also called a
terper
)

KIDVID.
Children’s TV show

SOCKO.
Very good, as in “socko B.O.”

OFF-NET.
Network TV series reruns sold into syndication

N.S.G.
Not So Good, usually bad reviews or poor B.O.

NABE.
Neighborhood theater

NET.
TV network—the
Eye
(CBS), the
Peacock
(NBC), or the
Alphabet
(ABC)

AD-PUB.
The advertising and publicity department of a movie studio

CLEFFER.
Songwriter

PREEM.
A movie premiere

SCRIBBLER.
TV writer. (A screenwriter is a
scripter.
)

MITTING.
When the aud applauds

You’ve probably had a Philadelphia cheesesteak or a Chicago deep-dish pizza. You might even have had them in Chicago or Philadelphia. Here are some local delicacies rarely found outside their home territory
.

F
OOD
: Garbage Plate
FOUND IN
: Rochester, New York
DESCRIPTION
: Diner owner Nick Tahou (of Nick Tahou Hots) invented this dish in the late 1940s when some college students asked him for a plate with “all the garbage on it.” The Plate starts with home fries and macaroni salad mixed together. It’s then topped with two hamburger patties, onions, mustard, ketchup, and hot sauce. You can replace the hamburger patties with cheeseburgers, a steak, hot dogs, Italian sausages, link sausages, ham, or fried fish. The entrée is served at other Rochester restaurants, but since Tahou trademarked “Garbage Plate,” it’s usually listed on rival menus as the “Dumpster Plate.”

FOOD
: St. Paul Sandwich

FOUND IN
: Chinese restaurants in St. Louis, Missouri

DESCRIPTION
: It’s a sandwich that consists of an egg foo yung patty on white bread with lettuce, tomato, bean sprouts, onions, dill pickle, and lots of mayonnaise. The origins of the sandwich—and its name—are unknown.

FOOD
: Runza

FOUND IN
: Nebraska and Kansas

DESCRIPTION
: German and Russian immigrants settled there in the late 1800s and developed this dish—a stuffed bread pocket, filled with minced beef, pork, sauerkraut, and onions. If you get one in Nebraska, it will be rectangular. A Kansas runza is usually round.

FOOD
: Scrapple

FOUND IN
: Philadelphia and Delaware

DESCRIPTION
: Created by German butchers, scrapple is
believed to be the first pork dish that originated in the United States. The main ingredient is pork bits left over from butchering, including the head, liver, and heart. The meat is boiled off the bone, chopped, and added with spices to a cornmeal mush. It’s gelled into loaves, cut into slices, and pan-fried. It’s served as a breakfast food, topped with maple syrup.

FOOD
: Slinger

FOUND IN
: St. Louis, Missouri

DESCRIPTION
: A mountain of food similar to the Garbage Plate. The Slinger consists of two eggs topped with hash browns and a hamburger patty. The whole thing is then covered in chili, topped with cheese and onions, and served with bacon or sausage. (Ugh!)

FOOD
: Horseshoe Sandwich

FOUND IN
: Springfield, Illinois

DESCRIPTION
: It’s an open-faced sandwich of thick sourdough toast topped with ham, french fries, and a cheese sauce. It was invented at the Leland Hotel in 1928 by cooks Joe Schweska and Steve Tomko. Local legend says it was created to honor local horseshoe makers who frequently dined at the Leland. It was originally served on a hot metal platter (to represent an anvil); the ham looked like a horseshoe, and the fries resembled nails.