On March 12, 1957, my Uncle and Aunt invited me and my Mom and Dad to their house for dinner. However, the main attraction was to watch TV on the first television owned by anyone in my Grandmother's family of six children. I remember this night as if it was last night even though I was barely 4 and 1/2 years old. The television show playing after dinner was Cheyenne starring Clint Bodie (highly recommend this TV western available on Netflix for download viewing). The episode was Big Ghost Basin. The other star of the show I will never forget -- it was a gigantic grizzly bear that only was seen on screen as a pair of giant white eyes glowing in the campfire. I watched this show alone as my parents and my uncle and aunt were still in the kitchen probably having a smoke and after-dinner coffee. No one had bothered to explain to me that what was going on inside that box they called a TV was not real. Somehow I had it in my little brain that those people were just a bit smaller and resided in that box -- it was ALL real to me. I remember hanging in there through both the scenes when the giant bear's eyes glowed in the dark back at me. However, I totally lost it on one of the last scenes when the big bear made a bee-line for Cheyenne. I was absolutely certain that old grizz (which I learned year's earlier was so mean -- he had already mauled/killed many cowboys and snuffed out their campfires --- because he had been burned and misfigured in a forest fire) was coming out of that TV "box" and was about to have little old me as supper. (Dinner was served at noon in the deep south in 1957.) It was several minutes before my Mom got me settled down and out of her arms.
Looking back on the incident now after over 50 years and having watched this episode a few night ago on Netflix I can't blame Mom and Dad for letting me watch "age inappropriate" televisions shows. Heck, this was probably the first time they had ever watched TV too. After watching it again as a 57-year old man, I can't be mad at me for being a wuss and getting scared by the show. All these years later those big eyes glowing in the dark still got to me just a little.
