I know what you mean. Mom and dad kept our old Philco in the living room as a “nice piece of furniture” until the very end. They used it very little during that time.
Sometimes when home on weekends from college or making a laundry run, I turned it on just to see if it still worked. It was still functional when I bought mom and dad a new 15-inch RCA color portable after my graduation and first job out of college. This was around 1967.
The old TV sat there until mom and dad passed away in the eighties, and the executor of the estate sold the home and its furnishings. The old Philco, he put on the curb. And that was the last time I saw it.
Looking back, it was the Ed Sullivan Show, the Twilight Zone, and the Walt Disney shows I watched as a kid that had a lasting impact on my life. It was the Lone Ranger, Cisco Kid, and others that instilled some moral values in me that I adhere to this day. It was a great time to be a kid.
My grandfather spoke little english. He ran out little store and could communicate enough with customers. Loved westerns including Lone Ranger and Cisco Kid. but his favorite was Groucho Marx. He got all of Groucho’s jokes and I remember him laughing and enjoying himself, more than at any other time, as we watched the shows together.