70s-child: Game Shows:

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Game Shows:

In the mid-late 70s, I watched alot of game shows in the Summer when there really wasn't alot else to do (anyone else out there who grew up in Raynham Massachusetts between '76 to '80 knows what I mean). My favorite was probably The Gong Show. Hollywood Squares was another favorite, but mom couldn't stand the show so I never watched it. I never missed The Price Is Right, and once that one was over I basically got kicked out of the house for the rest of the day until supper. Even though they tended to be boring as hell, looking back, sometimes I do miss those old Summer vacations.

Don't expect much out of me for a quarter:

As a kid, I never got an allowance. That's something my folks weren't into. They were very generous with me, I never lacked anything, and usually when I asked for something they'd get it for me, but an allowance just wasn't going to happen. In '76, just before my folks split up, dad decided to give me a "job". It was sometime in January and the weather was pretty brutal, so he told me he'd pay me a quarter if I'd open the garage door for him when he got home so he wouldn't have to get out of the car and open it himself. We lived in a split level house (a raised-ranch), and the garage was in the lower level. The very first night, I was watching TV and I heard him pull in and stop at the garage door. I didn't want to leave my show, and it was pretty cold down there in the garage, and I was rather warm and cozy and comfortable sitting in front of the tv, so I basically ignored him. He honked. He honked again. And again. And again. Finally I heard him open the car door, open the garage himself, pull into the garage and slam the door shut. The way he slammed the door, I could tell he was angry and that I was in trouble. He came upstairs and just looked at me. Let's just say I lost my job that night, which didn't really bother me. A QUARTER??? I didn't get out of BED for that kind of money...