As the saying goes, Christmas is for kids, and I received my most memorable Christmas present fifty year ago, December 25, 1969. I was eight years old. For months, I had been dropping hints to my parents. Western Auto- remember them? As the name suggests, they sold parts for automobiles. They had a counter at the back of the store where you could get a new alternator or whatever. They sold tires, too. But, most of the store was filled with other things. They sold firearms- rifles and shotguns mostly, as I recall. They sold BB guns and pellet rifles, kids toys, bicycles, lawnmowers, various electronics and so on. One of the items my local Western Auto had on display beginning in the summer of 1969 was a 9 inch B&W television and I wanted this thing so badly, I could taste it.
My family had one television, which I suppose was true for most middle class families of that era. On Saturday mornings, I was king, but just about any other time, we watched what my father wanted to watch. Many times, his taste in programming lined up with mine perfectly, but other times, not so much. With my own TV in my own bedroom, I would be able to watch what I wanted, no negotiating or cajoling necessary.
The Western Auto was in a strip mall, a few doors down from the Kroger grocery store where my mother shopped. From summertime until the end of the year, after leaving the grocery store, the conversation was the same.

"Mom, I want to show you something."

"I know what you want to show me. I have ice cream here that's melting. Get in the car, please."

"Nothing else, mom. Just that. Just that, I promise. I won't ask for anything else- and I don't want a birthday present next year."

"Sure. Now, help me with these bags."

I can't recall the price. I think it was sixty-five dollars. That was a lot of money back then for the working man. To an eight year old kid, it was a fortune.

My father was well aware of my desire, and he had a sense of humor that I could not fully appreciate at the time, so, when a very large box with my name on it appeared beside our Christmas tree in mid-December, my heart dropped. I imagined two gross of underwear, school clothes, shoes - the items my mother referred to as "practical things".
I began planning my longterm strategy for the TV as a birthday present, and I planned that I would declare months in advance of that day that I wished for no Christmas present for 1970. Never had I wanted a thing so badly as I did that TV.

Kids these days have no concept. No smart phone, no tablet, no laptop, no desktop PC. No MP3 players, 24 hour movies, video games. No DVRs, no DVDs, streaming services, instant replay, none of it. We had radio, TV, newspapers and motion pictures, and that was it.

I was a fledgling movie buff- a sprout, dying in in the blazing sun of a waterless desert. I knew my parents loved me and I had it pretty damn good, and I had been told countless times at the dinner table about the children starving in Africa, but I couldn't help but cringe each time I passed that gigantic box next to the tree. The box was somewhat heavy and it betrayed nothing when I shook it. Clothes. I know it's going to be two years worth of school clothes. Underwear. I kept imagining my mother buying out the entire inventory of tighty whiteys from Sears&Roebuck.

Come the morning of the 25th, I was less than enthused. I tried to act a bit more sleepy than your average eight year old boy on this greatest of days. Maybe I'll have some orange juice before I try to work up a smile for undergarments. But, best to not be too obvious. Get it over with.

I tore into the box with both mom and dad watching me. I was encouraged to encounter a thick layer of wadded up newspapers. Now I dug down quickly, realizing that the box seemed to be mostly empty, and encountered two items in the center of the box. Major Matt Mason. Any of you old guys remember that? This was a Mattel "action figure", an astronaut, along with another Mattel figure- Captain Lazer. Am I jarring loose any memories?

Surprised and not displeased, I think I said "Oh!" I hugged my mom and dad. "Merry Christmas". I began to ask my dad about the box but before I could get the words out, he said "Keep going."

I pulled out more newspaper, and at the bottom of this box were two newspaper-wrapped bricks and a 9" B&W TV set from Western Auto, the greatest store ever in the history of all mankind.

"oh, YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!! OH BOY OH YAAAAAYYY!!!!

Elation does not begin to describe it. Euphoria was more like it.

All day, I played with my new set. As with most people my age, I had access to three channels- ABC, NBC and CBS, and two of those channels were kinda fuzzy. In my hometwown, the local TV station was an NBC affiliate. Come evening, my dad had had enough of the noise of two TVs playing and signalled me to go to my room. I can tell you that December 25, 1969 was a Thursday, because the NBC TV show Ironside was the very first TV show I watched on my own TV in my own room, and Ironside aired on Thursdays, at 7:30 in the Central time zone. Later, I watched The Tonight Show but I was disappointed that Johnny had a guest host that night. Johnny worked hard, so, of course he would have Christmas off, but, still... Florence Henderson, of all people, as I recall, was the guest host.

The beginnings of the film buff I am today are rooted with that little set. A nine inch screen may sound tiny but I don't remember it like that, and I watched so many old movies on that set, there's no way to count. I was particularly fond of a certain type of old film that I could not put a name to, but everyone in these films seemed so serious and in trouble and somebody got killed in most of them and there were guns and cops and tough talk and all of that good stuff. It would be another decade before I heard the term "film noir". There was another type of film, too. For some reason, films made before about 1935 seemed to be different somehow, though I could not put my finger on it. Again, it would be many years before I heard the term "pre-code". But, I recognized these films, even if I could not define them or categorize them.

And all of that started fifty years ago tonight, right about this time. Is it possible? It doesn't seem possible that that was half a century ago, and yet, the calendar doesn't lie. Still, it's just not possible. It can't be.

Cool

Great story.

Great story Para. You wrote it like 'Ralphie' from A Christmas Story would've told it. Thanks for sharing, and a VERY Merry Christmas to you, Sir!

We had a Western Auto in our town and it was indeed a great store. Once they had a guy who had a flatbed truck parked outside the store and he was doing quickdraws against a clock. He picked me from the audience and gave me a nickel SAA. He told me to pull the trigger when the buzzer went off and the clock started. The big dial would stop at the sound of the shot. I pointed the thing up in the air and pulled the trigger on a blank when the buzzer went off. He then holstered the gun and was able to draw and fire quicker than I could pull the trigger. I have no idea as to who he was. I suppose it could have been Bill Jordan, but I don't think he used SAA's.

I got my first new red Western Flyer from that store and the case I still have the Winchester 1200 in that I got in 63. I also got a fair amount of ammo from there.

Fifty years ago tonight, I had been in Vietnam for just about a week. We had a party and I drank too much and sunburned the tops of my feet and backs of my knees. I had to put my fatigues on and go to work that night and it hurt.

Thank you for sharing, Para.

I would have never guessed you were younger than me...

Merry Xmas!

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Great story, Para---you brought back lots of memories for all of us.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, and to everyone on SigForum.

Para, what a wonderfully crafted, wonderfully told story!

In many ways, I think you and I grew up in similar times with similar backgrounds...but then again, maybe most boys who grew up during that time can identify with the stores, toys, TV shows, and most importantly, the desires and inspirations of the time...

...just as Ralphie in a Christmas Story knew what hints and tactics he had to use to have any hope of getting his Red Ryder BB gun. One didn't simply ask and then receive a gift back then...you had to scheme and plan and beg...and justify the gift to have any hope of receiving it.

For us, the ginormous Sears catalog would arrive and my sister and I would argue for possession of, as amongst all the tires, tools, and clothing, there were also the games and toys, and we would dream about owning as we furiously circled with crayon or pencil our objects of desire. Fond memories of receiving a couple of those items.

I particularly remember a game we found in the Sears catalog called Ka-Boom...in which the game players placed a balloon on a fixture, and either by game cards or dice (can't recall for certain) we would each have to take turns pumping the plunger and the balloon slowly inflated during the game. The person who finally pumped the balloon until it popped was the loser...but sometimes we enjoyed the loss.

Our Western Auto was along the main street of our small town, and while the car parts held no interest for me, the guns and toys did...and, YES, I too had a Major Matt Mason bendable action figures with the removable astronaut helmet and the yellow visor that flipped up...one of my prized possessions for several years.

I'm glad you got your TV...and thanks for sharing the story.

I had Major Matt Mason and a space station with blue see thru fold down panels on the top deck along with some kind of moon backhoe/grader. I would have killed for my own TV. I got the 8 year old 21" RCA tabletop when we got a new set in 1982. I didn't buy a new TV till 1989.

A good story,, of a Christmas long ago, and what it would bring, in the heart and mind of a young boy that would last him through his life. Well done, well told.

Para, your writing skills again are impressive. Thanks for sharing the story!

I'm quite a bit older than you. That said I too had a small portable in my early days. It was an Emerson Model 1232 (1956 vintage) I got used in the late '50s - early '60s. It served me well for more years than I can count.

As a side note, the fact that mini TVs even existed during this time frame is a bit of a revelation for me...I recall seeing a mini TV first sometime in the late '70s or early '80s and didn't receive my first one until the early '90s.

Thanks for sharing a great story with us, Para. Made me think back 50 years ago of what I was hoping to get for Christmas and how good we really did have it back then.

Brings back great memories! I didn't get my own TV, but my parents bought a 2nd TV for their room that we were allowed to use most if the time if we were good. And didn't fight about what to watch. Luckily, compared to today, there were few choices that appealed to kids.

This made me think about Christmases past also.

1967, my mother spent way too much on my Christmas that year. I was 15. Less than four months before my dad passed. She went overboard that year on gifts for me. Two things I remember that year, one was a sweater and scarf set. It fit my style that year, I thought of myself as what the English called a "Mod" back then, me and my 67 Suzuki 50cc motorcycle.

I actually had another motorcycle at the time, I could not legally ride it because my cycle license was restricted due to my age. I bought it from my cousin, I made payments to him for it. A Honda 305 Scrambler. So it sat in the garage more or less until I turned 16 early in 1968. Well, it usually was in the garage

I owed him a couple of hundred dollars for it.

Christmas Eve she and I went shopping. We were at J.L. Hudson at the Northland Center. My big gift that year was a Polaroid 220 camera. That replaced a Polaroid Swinger that was passed down from an aunt that broke earlier in the year. So I thought. I still have the first photo I took with it, my mother sitting in a chair watching TV, the Hudson's bag next to the chair.

Christmas morning she gave me a card. Inside was written that she had paid my cousin off what I owed him.

For what she made working for the phone company, us living in a rented house with really nothing to our names but a three year old car and a bunch of hand me down furniture, she sacrificed a lot financially that year for me. About 1971 I was on my own and realized how much she did that she really could not afford to do. I pretty sure I thanked her for those sacrifices but time dims memory, she has been gone since 1998.

That bike is long gone. I still have the camera and the sweater/scarf combination though. And the memories of Christmas past.

Thank you.

Great story para, and as others have noted, very well written. Bravo!

Great story. Things were so different back then.

Cool story- is it odd that I heard it in Ralphies voice from A Christmas Story?

There’s something about a special all-your-own item that you never forget. My first tv was this 5” screened gem. It was tiny, but the screen folded into it and had am/fm radio to boot. Kids these days have NO idea.

Love it! Merry Christmas Para!

Merry Christmas, and thank you for the wonderful memory!