Ray Lepper from Home Media of Richmond is going to show us and you all kinds of gizmos and gadgets to bring us up to speed on what's available out there. He'll let us in on all the new secrets of wireless capability so that you can program, watch, enjoy, and be entertained anywhere and everywhere in your house.
Which got me to thinking...
The 'what' is really nothing new... it's the HOW that's the new part (the gizmos and gadgets, that is).
When I was a kid, my sister and I enjoyed 'home entertainment' all the time! When I think about it, our house was light years ahead of its time in terms of what was available... especially circa 1979.
You see, our dad was (and still is) a gadget freak. A nut. A junkie.
It all star
ted with the trains. When little Jimmy was a boy, he liked trains. He liked Lionel trains, and he got new ones every year for his birthday and for Christmas (and he got upset if he did not get the one he asked for... yes, we have family video footage to prove this little temper tantrum to his grandchildren.) When I was a very small child, Jimmy's train village took up an entire room in our basement. Occasionally he would let my sister or me wear the conductor's hat, too. Now the trains are packed away... (we need to change that).
Then there were the phones. Jimmy worked for 'the phone company'. We had LOTS of phones. When most of our friends had 2-3 phones (1 in the kitchen, 1 in their parents' bedroom, and 1 in the study or den), we had... 17. Yes. We had 17 phones. Oh, and they ALL worked.
We had the expected princess styles in the bedrooms (and bathrooms), and then we had the novelty phones: Mickey Mouse, Celebrity, Stars & Stripes. When our friends came over, there were two distinct favorites: the switchboard and the phone booth. The switchboard had all of the wires and plugs, just like the kind Lily Tomlin used when she squawked "one ringy dingy, two ringy dingy" on Laugh-In. And it worked.
The phone booth was the real hit though. The payphone inside the booth really did require quarters to call out. ... which reminds me of the payphone episode in The Brady Bunch... a plan that went bust on poor Mike Brady... but I digress.
This was the kind of phone booth that helped Clark Kent become SuperMan, the kind that college students used to stuff themselves into for photo opps, the kind that my giant stuffed gorilla from a long ago boyfriend used to live in, after I left for college.
So, we've got the trains and the phones. We also had GAMES. Board games were a huge part of growing up for us. From Chutes & Ladders, Candyland, and Sorry,
we moved onto Operation, Twister, Life, Trouble, and Clue. Of course we had the requisite Monopoly sets, multiple Scrabble boards, and, later, Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit.And, of course, when 'video games' came out, my dad had to get the latest and greatest gadget of them all: PONG by Atari. For those of you too young to remember this early video game, you can click here for a PONG video version. Note the high skill and technical prowess required........ to stay awake while playing.
Thanks to my dad's gadget-habit, we girls also had great stereo systems, walkie-talkies, cb radios, early cell phones (the ones that actually came in a bag you kept in your car), and COMPUTERS!
So, I guess when I begrudge my daughter some screen time with the TV, Wii, DS, or computer, I really need to think back to the time I spent on 'Home Entertainment' growing up. Gadgets can make our lives simpler AND more complex. We love 'family game night' at our house, because it means we turn OFF the tv and play charades or a board game. We also love having teams and challenging each other to a bit of Wii bowling (my 9-year-old is darn good... and my Mii is cuter than I am, so it's a whole lot of fun!).
However you enjoy 'Home Entertainment' with your family and friends, we hope you'll visit LaDiff this Saturday, Feb. 6th, to get a glimpse at some of the NEW ways we can be 'entertained' at home.
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