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Trimming trees for better reception

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Tambo.HeaderFC.WEBLast week I checked the sports’ page recently to see what college and high school football games were on the tube. The UT listed 35 games on Saturday but my satellite system had well over 50 choices. I also noted more high school football games than professional games.

Then I got to thinking about the good ol’ days. When I moved to Ramona, I had a 19-inch television set. It was called a portable TV. It was called that because it was not a piece of furniture like the big consoles, but just a TV. There was no cable in Ramona. There were no satellites in Ramona. One had to have an antenna. The rich had huge antennas on their roofs that could tether a blimp. I had what were called “rabbit ears.”

Depending on where one lived, one either got channels 8 and 10 or 39 and 51 and a channel from Mexico that ran interesting soap operas. I got 8 and 10, which was great for a football fan because CBS and ABC were the only channels that televised football games.

With my rabbit ears I could get some college and some pro games and Monday Night Football. The reception was not that good. I remember watching a Forty Niners game on Monday Night. The quarterback’s number was 1-1-1-6-6-6 and he threw three balls to number 8-8-8-2-2-2. No, they didn’t have six numerals on their jerseys. My reception was that bad so I paid a big chunk of money to get one of those long antennas on my roof. By doing so I added channels 6, 39, 51 and 69. I didn’t get better reception. I just got more channels of bad reception and I was thrilled to get it.

When satellites came out I eventually saved enough money to buy a huge dish thanks to the kids who had to go to Saturday School. I was the Saturday School “teacher.” And every Saturday I would give the kids who were there the same pep talk. “I know your parents want you to get to class on time. I know that they want you to quit being truant and to quit leaving campus for lunch. But you have to learn to resist pressure and be your own person. I want you to continue being tardy, truant and bad. I am the only person in Ramona who loves you for what you are. I need you to keep being bad so I can get a satellite.”

It worked! Enough kids were assigned Saturday School one year and I got my dish. By the way, the kids hated the speech and speaker. But I didn’t want new friends. I wanted a satellite.

There were a couple of trees interfering with my satellite reception, so I decided to trim those trees. In doing so I cut a huge limb that fell and crushed my satellite the first week I had it. I was depressed. The Saturday School kids laughed.

In the good ol’ days, once one brought a satellite one could get live feeds of football games, movies that were shown in hotels, movies from foreign countries, and all of the networks and cable stations FREE. That didn’t last long enough. Somebody came up with a way to scramble the signals so that you had to pay for the reception. Eventually the small dishes came out and that is what I have now.

I don’t have enough money to pay for all of the stations I can get or the time to count them. I do get such football powers as: Delaware State, Jackson State, Norfolk, Slippery Rock and Stephen F. Austin. I also get Katy High School games from Texas and high school games from Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

There is a down side to all of the options one now has on television. Donkey Basketball games no longer bring in a crowd. Faculty/student games in all sports no longer make money. Alumni games are becoming a thing of the past. A baseball player of mine once asked me where Alumni High School was. “We play ‘em in soccer and baseball this year.”

I didn’t have an answer. Alumni High is like God. It is everywhere. The same genius also predicted that we would beat BYE on his birthday. He thought that BYE was a Mormon school. I won’t give out his name because he has students at the high school and they might find out the answer to his question and ruin his self-image.

Unfortunately the San Diego Section no longer televises a high school game of the week. The Southern Section does. ESPN and Fox televise several prep games weekly. Tape one. You will see that the community of Ramona supports its team as well as most teams in the nation.

I have to go. I am going to trim the limbs on the trees around my latest satellite.

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