[exit82]

I am sorry to hear about your mom and dad passing.

We were poor but didn’t know it.

My father lost his job of 25 years and spent his severance check, $500, on the color TV. It was an RCA model. We had that one luxury. Wow—was it great to see things in color. In 1964, some shows were still in black and white—color was pretty standard by the 1966 fall season.

He worked in menial machine shop jobs for the next 15 years until retirement, after being a supervisor over an entire plant in the job he lost when the company was bought out by a firm that moved the operation from NJ to Wisconsin.

And you are right—I did forget about Marlon Perkins and the Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom. It was always great when the guest animal would not behave for his sidekick Jim.

[TontoKowalski]

Classic Wild Kingdom moment... Jim was wrestling an alligator in the swamp or something, and Marlon was narrating the action.

In a completely flat unemotional voice: "I think Jim may be tiring."

I remember my mother cackled about that for weeks afterward.