he upholstery was blue and had a nap that I can’t quite describe except to say there were patterns in it. I’m sure there’s a word for it somewhere — some knowledgeable upholsterologist knows what it is. Despite our appalling upholsterological ignorance, my family spent quite a bit of time watching television on that old couch.

They don't do nostalgia like they used to

Everything about the TV would be foreign to my children. It was black and white. It ran on vacuum tubes and needed to warm up after you turned it on. There was a little silver switch that today we’d call a standby. It was supposed to shorten the warm-up time by providing constant power to the tubes’ heaters. But we never used it because my mother was convinced it would burn the house down. There were two tuning knobs. The VHF knob made a loud clack when you turned it. The UHF knob turned smoothly like a radio dial and you tuned in your station. Volume was controlled by a thumb wheel. Though primitive by today’s standards, it did have a remote control — me.

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