Pat tells me she really doesn't remember this story which simply means I get to tell it MY WAY!Keep in mind, I DO love to paint her as the evil older sister, but honestly, without her, you wouldn't have the pleasure of reading this! I doubt I would have EVER learned ANY of this stuff without her patience and guidance... OK ENOUGH of that... onto the story!
We had a television in the kitchen. I guess having said "puke" at the dinner table one too many times resulted in the need for something more entertaining than kids' conversation during dinner.
Star Date: PRE-1969 Miracle Mets- in the days when they were HORRID ~ the days of Don Clendenon, Ed Charles, Ron Swoboda, Cleon Jones, Ed Kranepool, Buddy Harrelson... you know the names, but BEFORE they won the World Series in 1969.
The games were shown on WOR-TV Channel 9. MOST games were on TV- no cable special sports channels... just good old channel nine- where you could watch 'The Crawling Eye' or 'The Blob' over and over on a Saturday afternoon. Can you hear the announcer? "If you missed any part of this program, or would like to see it again, stay tuned!" Ah. Life was simple back then!
So- back to the Mets.
One evening my sister decided to try something cool (which USUALLY resulted in me screaming and her getting in trouble). She took the earphone for her transistor radio (notice it's NOT plural... there was ONE thing you stuck in your
ear) and plugged it into the TV... Ooooooooooooooooh it was great... you could hear Lindsey Nelson calling the game... and no one else could!I think I even got a try- for about 8 or 9 seconds... but it was HER earphone... so it was back in her ear pretty quickly. After a few minutes of this, I did my thing, mom and/or dad did their thing, she was in trouble and I had on my evil grin.
She removes the earphone plug from the TV so we BOTH could hear the game, but NO SOUND! She plugged it back in... ok.. sound from the earphone, unplugs it... NO SOUND... oh CRUD- nothing... how would we listen to the Mets game? How would we listen to "The Crawling Eye" or "House on Haunted Hill" ? HOW WOULD WE EXPLAIN IT TO THEM????? I had MY version ready to go (PATTY DID IT), but in the meantime, we'd miss the game AND Kiner's Corner!
Being the brilliant 7 or 8 year old that I was (see note here), I had a SOLUTION!
Pull the TV closer to the kitchen table
Extend the ridiculously long earphone plug to the center of the kitchen table
Both of us LAY across the kitchen table, ears close to the earphone, eyes towards the television
VIOLA! SOUND!
We watched the rest of the game laying on the kitchen table with our ears towards the single earphone and our eyes towards the TV. I have NO IDEA what happened to that old TV that suddenly had NO SOUND, but the radio that went along w/ that single earphone is still kicking around... and STILL WORKING! Go figure.
As I said earlier... Life was simple back then!
Let's Go METS!
When I figure out how to add the song, I will and EVERYBODY SING:
Meet the Mets, meet the Mets,Step right up and greet the Mets.Bring your kiddies, bring your wife,Guaranteed to have the time of your life.Because the Mets are really sockin' the ball,Knockin' those home runs over the wall.East side, West side, everybody's coming down,To meet the M-E-T-S Mets, of New York town.
