Loogootee Pt 2, an excerpt from Never Settled, available from Amazon & other retailers Dec 27th!

We had a great thirteen inch color television! I’m still amazed when I look back and think about all we didn’t have, but somehow we always had money for TVs, stereos and a VCR or seven. I turned on the television by pulling the knob and turning the channel to 45. Our TV had two channel dials. Many of our favorite channels with kids shows were on UHF so you had to turn the top knob to “U” and the bottom knob to 45. On popped one of my favorite shows, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

I plopped down and watched by myself. Watching TV was certainly one of my favorite past times. Buck took me to another world. I didn’t really notice how quirky or cheesy it was at the time. Or, at least, I didn’t care. Twiggy was the best friend I never had. He went with me no matter what town we lived in. I suppose that was one of the greatest consistencies I did have in my life. No matter where we lived, I always had a TV and the shows didn’t change. I could stay in touch with Buck Rogers, the Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman, and my friends on Gilligan’s island whether we lived in Indiana, New Mexico, California, Colorado, Illinois or wherever else the road took us. Gilligan’s silly antics would be there to make me laugh and feel a little bit better about life.

TV also kept us from doing our chores which often got us into hot trouble too. In our house, the kids were most responsible to keep the house clean. We all had chores and typically, we would get a small allowance. My dad liked the idea of us learning how to earn our pay, while at the same time keeping the house clean. We didn’t do a great job though.

After school, one of our favorite programs to come home and watch was Wonder Woman. I can’t tell you how often, we came home to watch Lynda Carter lassoing up some lying guy with her truth-telling rope. We got so caught up in the story that we never got around to cleaning our trailer, like one particular afternoon in Loogootee.

We were watching one of our favorite shows when suddenly all was quiet as the programming switched to a commercial. We heard the sound of tires pulling up and pebbles being thrown about when my parents‘ car entered the driveway. Terri, Jimmy and I looked at each other in startled fear. We were motionless for a split second and then all of the sudden, we sprang into action.