Being only about five years old at the time, I don't have alot of memories of the times before TVs came into my life, although I find myself more and more in the minority in that I can remember the preTV days at all.  I forget myself sometimes and don't feel my age, but the young bloods jolt me back to reality with comments such as "What was it like before you had shows to entertain you like the gold digger shows or Pawn Stars?"  Quips like this make me realize we weren't really missing all that much.Or could it be I was only five at the time and just don't remember all that much about my toddlerhood?  We were pretty unsophisticated back then, without educational shows like Sesame Street or whatever today's three year olds tune in to.  American Bandstand is what I cut my teeth on.  That and Walter Cronkite.  I guess the cartoons followed soon enough, and evolved into a Saturday morning tradition by the time I was eight or ten.  Nothing like getting up early on Saturday, before my folks got up, and switching on the TV for the lineup of the morning.  Bugs Bunny.  Porky Pig.  Felix the Cat.  Road Runner.  Those were just a few.  I wonder if kids today still watch the toons.  I don't think so.  I am not sure that having a dose of weird looking TeleTubbies every morning is going to raise them up as normal as watching the good old traditional things we watched like Slam Bang Theater.  Time will tell.  Back to the preTV times.  I remember doing things like sitting on the grass staring up at the clouds during the summer.  I wished it would snow but it didn't of course, not at temperatures at least in the ninteties.  Another time, when I was only a little Kindergartener, I remember my mom waking me up and telling me we wouldn't have school that day.  My teacher had called and said we didn't have to come to class because it had snowed.  Mom opened the window, and I looked out at the white wonderland outside the glass!  What a surprise!  But the memories like those are few and scattered.  I do remember some things because my mother has retold the stories, like fetching the Demazin, a cold medicine, from the cabinet and drinking spoonful after spoonful, dribbling the blue syrup in a trail down the hall as I did!  Another time, Mom recounts, I fetched my new little brother from his baby bed and carried him from the room!  I'm not quite sure how I managed that one, being as the baby bed was pretty tall and I was only five!  I'm hoping I didn't drop him on his head or something, as the kid did some pretty crazy stuff in the days and years to follow.  Anyway, considering how i managed my free time, chugging cough syrup and kidnapping small babies, it's no wonder my parents were quick to acquire one of the new wonders when TVs became available.  They were quick to discover, I'm certain, the value of the appliance as a babysitter.  I mean, why would any self respecting five year old kidnap a small baby or get drunk on Demazin if they could plug in to Dick CLark and American Bandstand?         1 YhaThat