[davet753]

As a young child, we had two sets. The upstairs TV was the one my parents bought when they got married, a 21" GE black and white in a metal cabinet. My brother and I watched cartoons and other shows, and never really gave it a thought that it was only monochrome.

We had an RCA console downstairs that was color, but were not allowed to watch it until my father got home from work and would "supervise". At that time, it was a very expensive TV, and not for a childs hands.

My grandparents had a Zenith 4-tube hybrid portable, which I recall vividly. Unlike my parents, they had no "rules" concerning kids and color TV. I remember my grandfather bringing in his tool box one Saturday afternoon (I may have been around 6 years old) and taking the back off the Zenith just so I could see what was inside. As a child, I was always wanting to take things apart and see what made them work, and my grandfather was always more than happy to assist. After getting a good look at the inside of that old Zenith, I decided I was going to be a television repairman when I grew up, and I did. If the bottom had not dropped out of the repair industry in the late 1990's, I'd still be in the repair business today.