The year was 1970. Cigarette prices had been steadily climbing throughout the 60’s. Why, they had just hit an obscene 40 cents a pack! Something had to be done.
Thus, the Laredo cigarette rolling machine was released. The plastic device would compress tobacco into a tube of cigarette paper to make a more or less professional smoke. You could add a filter if you like. Laredo sold the machine and the supplies. Killing yourself just became cheaper.
Unfortunately, the history of the Laredo machine is shrouded in mystery. I did find out that it was roughly 1970 when it first appeared, and by the mid 70’s it remained modestly popular. The tobacco section of the drug store featured the machines and the Laredo branded tobacco, as well as complete kits that would produce a carton of smokes.
Laredo tobacco
Personally speaking, I remember seeing one up close in 1972. That was the year that we purchased a farm near Pea Ridge, Arkansas The wife of the owner was a chain smoker, and I recall a Laredo machine sitting on the kitchen table the first time we looked at the house. My mom had quit smoking the year before, and I also noticed a strong tobacco stench in the house that I had once been oblivious to.
I’ve always been fascinated by gadgets, and I stared at that plastic wonder for quite some time.
As sin taxes rose throughout the 70’s, Laredo machine sales remained steady. Technique was everything, though, and an incompetent roller could create “sticks,” as one board commenter I found in my research described them. Cramming too much tobacco into the paper tube would cause the cig to be nearly impossible to draw a breath through.
You could buy a kit to roll a carton of cigarettes for half the price of Marlboros. Thus, the inventive smoker had a way to cut the costs of his/her habit.
Like me, most kids love gadgets, and no doubt a significant number of them were delighted to create smokes for their parents with Laredo machines. One board commenter stated that he would roll out twenty every morning for his father before he went to work.
Laredo owners remained faithful to their brand, and thus the product survived. It never really tore the roof off of the market, neither did it pose any real threat to cigarette manufacturers. Eventually, it disappeared, the process no doubt aided by its original 1970 customers stopping smoking. This choice was either voluntary or not. But the Laredo cigarette machine did provide yet another contribution to the memory banks of those of us who remember JFK, and who were around smoking households in the 70’s.
We have always needed help in adding up numbers. Even if a businessman was a mathematical savant, his customers would still want to see proof that the prices they were being charged were absolutely correct. Thus, businesses like my father’s truck garage had an adding machine that would print up a paper record of calculated figures.
But as electronics got more sophisticated and less bulky, pulling a handle on a noisy machine to calculate a value gave way to simply punching buttons on a wonderful new device known as a calculator. And if you remember JFK, you likely also have vivid memories of seeing one of them for the first time.
I had hours of fun playing with that adding machine that used to sit on dad’s office desk in that truck garage. you punched in the numeric keys, selected an add or subtract function, pulled the handle, and the sum would magically be printed out on a paper roll.
I also remember electric adding machines that would handle more complex operations like multiplication and division. You punched in the numbers and function the same way, then pushed a total key that might make the machine churn for as long as a half a minute before spitting out your answer.
But in 1971, I walked into the office of Fitz Freight in Miami, Oklahoma, and caught my first glimpse of a truly revolutionary device that could add, subtract, multiply, and divide. The most amazing thing about was the fact that it produced your total instantly. The second most amazing thing about it was the fact that the total was displayed in the form of blue illuminated numerals.
Vintage calculators
Joe Fitzgibbon was an old friend of my father’s. We had moved out of Miami three years earlier, but dad liked to revisit the town once every few months and keep in touch with his cronies. It was on one of these periodic visits that my eleven-year-old eyes first saw an electronic calculator.
I spent hours punching in long strings of numbers and being amazed that their impossibly complex values were instantly and silently calculated. And those blue LED’s were so space age to look at. It was easy to transform myself into Captain Kirk at the helm of the Enterprise, punching commands into the ship’s computer.
That calculator probably cost Fitz Freight at least $400. But as their components became more readily available, their price began dropping.
My oldest brother obtained one two or three years later for around a hundred bucks. In 1978, I finally sprang for one of my own from Sears that was loaded with functions and cost around fifty dollars.
Eventually, LCD’s replaced the power-hungry (but beautiful) LED’s. And as electronics got tinier and cheaper, calculators became business giveaways.
Nowadays, calculators are included as throw-ins on cell phones, watches, and even Google. But once upon a time, they were futuristic, pricey, amazing wonders that thoroughly entranced eleven-year-olds.
Basic Pan pipes, like I received from Commander Whitehall
I’m always hesitant to write about more obscure memories. After all, just three months after putting this site up for the first time, we already have a nice amount of traffic in the form of reminiscing Baby Boomers. I don’t want to discuss things they don’t remember, but on the other hand, maybe they’ve been looking for info about the same obscure factoid. So here goes.
I was unable to find ANYTHING on the web about Commander Whitehall’s Explorer’s Club. So I’m operating on memory alone. Fortunately, my memory is pretty good.
Mrs. Cox, my third grade teacher, introduced the class to the Explorer’s Club. It cost about $5.00 a month, and a child would receive a box in the mail filled with genuine treasures from all over the world.
When your eagerly anticipated package would arrive, you would rip it open to discover a flexi-disc record, a brochure with pictures of the featured land, and, best of all, a trinket from that country!
I was in the club for six or seven months before dad decided that $5.00 a month was too much to spend. But during those months, I learned a tremendous amount about other nations.
Commander Whitehall would narrate the record, filled with sounds of the land he was in at the time in the background. It was killer stuff, and it wasn’t unusual to listen to the recording ten of fifteen times while playing with my monthly treasure.
I can recall three of the items I received. Apparently, Commander Whitehall was actually touring these countries, because all of the ones mentioned during my too-short membership were in South America. I got a set of pan pipes from Peru that looked just like the pictured ones. I also got a “pipette” as he called it, a miniature non-functioning pipe with a person’s face carved in the bowl. And I got a little drum-on-a-stick that you operated by twirling between your hands. Sadly, I don’t remember what countries the latter two delights came from.
I also recall that dad got into a fight with the Explorer’s Club when he tried to quit. They sent a final package that he didn’t want to pay for. All he got was letters demanding payment, because we were living in rural Missouri at the time, and didn’t have a phone yet!
But despite dad’s bad experience with Commander Whitehall’s Explorer’s Club, it is still a precious memory for me, and it made me curious enough about geography that I grew up to be one of those exceptional adults who can pick out South America on a world map ;-).
This last week, your humble webmaster purchased a piece of cutting-edge technology, a rare occasion for the hardware Luddite. I scored a Samsung Epic computer/phone which is approximately three times as smart as I am.
In mulling over subjects for today’s piece, I couldn’t get that amazing gadget out of my mind. Ergo, I decided that covering the evolution of the telephone would be an appropriate subject for nostalgic waxing.
Most of us grew up with a sound that’s practically extinct in the 21st century: the ringing of a bell every time a call came in. Almost without exception, we all had basic, durable telephones that were manufactured by the Western Electric Corporation. That particular entity came into being in 1882, just in time to forge a relationship with Alexander Graham Bell that would last 100 years. Western Electric was given the exclusive right to manufacture consumer telephones that would attach to The Bell System. Any other phones would be subject to immediate disconnection.
To their credit, they were much more friendly monopolists than, say, Microsoft. They manufactured a rock-solid, if not especially pretty, product that had a lifespan measured in decades.
Microsoft, of course, makes a pretty product that is as reliable as a car made from macaroni. 😉
But all of that officially came to a halt in 1984, when Bell broke up, and Western Electric lost its exclusive right to make Bell-approved phones. I actually remember purchasing a cheap flip phone in 1983, so Western lost its grip sometime prior to that.
One of the first quantum leaps in telephone evolution was the introduction of push buttons as a replacement for the rotary dial. As I mentioned in the linked article, the 1963 innovation took about ten years to show up as an option in little Bentonville, Arkansas. It was great for wired Type A’s like myself, you could punch in a number in 1/3 the time it took for that slow dial to return to rest. Plus, you got to talk to lots of nice strangers as you mis-punched the numbers.
1940’s era phone
Telephones first being available in a color besides black was an innovation that many of us recall, circa the early 50’s. Another 50’s innovation was the Princess phone (1959). I remember my best friend in Miami, Oklahoma had an older sister who had one. I was intrigued by its dainty pink appearance for short periods of time, before I was angrily chased out of her bedroom by its owner.
The Trimline phone was introduced in 1965. It allowed an amazing trick: you could make multiple calls without touching the receiver. The hang-up switch was contained in the headset.
By the end of the 60’s, party lines were fast growing extinct. Once a staple even in the big cities, by 1969 they were mostly a rural phenomenon. We lived on a farm in the late 70’s, and I remember what a big deal it was when we finally had a dedicated phone line, about 1976. No more listening for conversation before dialing! No more being asked what your phone number was by by an operator before being connected on a direct-dialed call!
Speaking of that, our kids and grandkids, who now call anywhere in the world for free on Skype or on generous phone plans offered through cable companies, would be amazed if they had to make a call 60’s style to a grandparent two states away. You began by dialing O, then told the operator what type of call you were willing to shell out for: station-to-station, which meant the billing began when the destination phone was answered, or person-to-person, which was pricier, but ensured that you wouldn’t be charged unless a specific person was available at the other end.
Direct dialing began in the big east coast cities in 1951. By the early 70’s, it was pretty much universally available, and AT&T was running lots of 1+ commercials on TV to educate us in how to save money by connecting ourselves to long distance parties.
“Freedom Phone”
The next big innovation in telephone evolution was the elimination of the cord altogether. In 1980, the FCC assigned a radio band for the purpose of cordless phone usage. The problem was that it was crap. The band was was very noisy. Thus the earliest cordless phones, besides being huge and expensive, were also nearly unusable. Oh, they were allowed to operate with lots of power, which made making long distance calls on your neighbor’s dime a real possibility.
In 1986, the band was changed and the power was limited, making quieter calls possible, albeit at a shorter range. Prices were dropping for the units, too. By the 90’s, many or most of us Boomers were making cordless calls on the new 900MHz range, which was whisper-quiet and stretched farther than the 1986 band.
It was during that final decade of the 20th century that many of us took the cellular plunge. It began with car phones, contained in a brown bag. Car phones were expensive to buy, and expensive to use. But their coolness factor was unassailable.
By the time the century turned, many of us carried cell phones on our belts or in our purses. It was a real paradigm shift, as we were now available 24/7, for better or worse.
That leads us to today’s smart phones. The iPhone led the way, with Android phones running about six months behind. We are now used to carrying a device which allows instant access to banking, shopping, entertainment, our regular jobs, live-video conversations with people half a world away, and I’m not sure what else. I’m still in the process of learning what all mine does.
Our grandparents saw the first cars, the first airplanes, and the first space shots, perhaps even living long enough to see man walk on the moon. Our own lives haven’t been quite so history-encompassing, but you know what? I still think being a Boomer is the best possible generation in which to live one’s life.
I am so pleased when I write about a toy from our Boomer childhoods, and don’t have to include it under the “Things that Disappeared When You Weren’t Looking” category! Such is the happy case with the subject of today’s piece, the Etch-a-Sketch, still proudly produced by Ohio Art! I was deeply hoping that they were being made in Ohio, but sadly, that’s not been the case since 2003.
However, let us celebrate the fact that they are still around, exactly like they were during the Decade of Change, when many of us were enjoying wonderful childhoods as Baby Boomers.
In reality, he created a very cool toy which 98% of us could use to make basic shapes, and cause us to envy true artistes with the talent to create masterpieces.
He took his invention to the International Toy Fair in Nuremburg, Germany, where a US-based company called Ohio Art showed little interest. However, upon seeing “The Magic Screen” a second time, they decided to roll the dice and take a chance on it.
1967 Etch-a-Sketch ad
Ohio Art tooled up their factory in Dayton in time to have a boatload of Etch-a-Sketches on store shelves by Christmas, 1960. The result was a smash hit, and a memory for many of us.
The Etch-a-Sketch was a familiar product in dime stores when we were kids, pricey enough to only rate being purchased for a special occasion like a birthday or Christmas. But untold millions were sold during the 60’s and 70’s. And we all learned a few lessons about them as we created our artistic attempts.
1. Not all of us were artists. In fact, most of us were pretty bad, but we still spent hour after hour twisting knobs, then turning the board over and clearing our efforts, and trying again.
2. A mistake meant either starting over, or turning the lemon into lemonade, i.e. integrating the mistake into your creation.
3. The Etch-a-Sketch would eventually crack on the black back side, leaving silvery aluminum dust all over the place.
4. Once that happened, your choice was to (a) talk mom or dad into another one, or (b) move on to something else. In my case, it was the Spirograph.
But it generally took years of being tossed helter-skelter into a toybox to crack the durable plastic. In the meantime, the investment our parents made in the toy had paid off with hundreds or thousands of hours of entertainment, and perhaps inspiration to make a career out of art.
The Etch-a-Sketch continues to be a successful toy, so you can go out and purchase one for your own grandchild. My first is due in three months, I’ll probably hold off for a year or two. 😉 But rest assured, that when little Edie grows up, she’ll have pleasant memories of a plastic device which allowed her to magically create all sorts of black shapes on a silver background.
And odds are she’ll be a lot more talented at it than her grandpa.
Who grew up in the 60’s or 70’s and hasn’t seen one of these? We used to jump in the old Fury III (Dad was partial to Plymouths) and head for Iowa and Texas every year (not at the same time) where my grandparents lived. On the way, we would stop and eat at cafes (no fast food for us!). It seemed like every one of them had a dippy bird doing his thing, many times on a shelf high up enough to be seen throughout the eatery.
I guess they had some horribly toxic substance in them, hence their rarity today. But if you remember JFK, you probably remember the dippy bird being a very common sight.
I’m just a punk kid Boomer, I’m the first to admit it. After all, JFK’s assassination was my first coherent memory. My oldest brother was already seventeen years old when our President was gunned down.
Today’s piece is aimed at Boomers of his generation. It’s all about when traveling by jet airliner became a commonplace occurrence.
The de Havilland Comet began service in 1952. It was the first jet airliner. Prior to the Comet, and for quite a few years afterwards, piston-engine-driven airliners were the norm. These included venerable classics like the Convair CV-240, The Douglas DC-6 and DC-7, and the sexiest airplane ever built, IMHO, the Lockheed Constellation.
For the average family in the early 50’s, the concept of getting on an airplane and going somewhere was not feasible. A train ticket could be obtained for much less, and a bus could be boarded if one’s budget would not allow for the luxury of a ride on the rails.
But airline travel was expensive! It was a special event indeed to board a plane.
But even if the elder Boomers couldn’t afford to actually fly, they were still inundated by advertising on TV and in print. And that advertising changed as the decade progressed: Airplanes were depicted with jet engines instead of the piston variety.
With federally regulated air travel of the era, flying was a sumptuous experience that would frequently motivate its participants to don their Sunday best. And the addition of jet power made for faster getting-there. Boarding a 50’s era Comet or 707 was indeed cause for celebration.
Speaking of the Comet, it was born in 1949, and by 1952 was approved for usage by any airline that wished to spring for one. However, a basic design flaw nearly put de Havilland and the Comet out of business, thanks to a series of notorious and tragic mishaps.
Boeing 707 ad
The Comet sported square window openings. The sharp corners that were thereby cut into the frame proved to be a source of strain for the structure’s integrity, and in 1954, two disastrous crashes resulted from the flaw. Comets were grounded for years, and it was 1958 before they flew again. By that year, Boeing had introduced the 707, and Douglas had launched the DC-8.
That was good news for consumers, but bad news for de Havilland as well as the remaining piston-powered aircraft. The piston planes were much more economical to operate, as their engines could go much farther on a tank of fuel. But consumers wanted speed, and their voice ultimately doomed classic rides like the sinuously curved Constellation.
By the way, if you’d like to see a Connie up close and personal, visit the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola, Florida. Admission is whatever you would like to pay, and you can spend a week savoring every piece of aviation history.
The Comet never did recover from its bad luck and bad press. Production ceased in 1964, although individual examples continued to fly commercially until 1981.
Boeing and Douglas took over the jet airliner business, and continue to dominate into the 21st century.
Occasionally, we might have to take a ride on a turboprop-powered plane for a connecting flight. The vibration and slower speed may prove to be a source of annoyance, especially since we are crammed like sardines into a cabin which must carry as many passengers as physically possible in order for the airline to turn a few cents of profit.
But those of us who can remember the decade of the 50’s might possibly be taken back to a simpler time when even slower turning propellers powered the aircraft that one felt very privileged to board. And climbing onto a jet-powered plane of the era was a treat beyond description.
On October 26, 1866, a Frenchman named Louis F. Breguet received a patent for a watch that ran on a tuning fork. He was, shall we say, just a bit ahead of his time, although he did manage to produce a prototype.
94 years later, another inventor named Max Hetzel saw his own version of the tuning fork watch see public release as the Bulova Accutron.
Hetzel, raised in Switzerland under very modest circumstances, used to comb the city dump for parts to make things. Early in life, he realized that engineering was his calling. His inventive mind earned him over 100 patents.
Switzerland was renowned for producing the world’s most accurate watches. But mechanical works powered by a balance wheel had a ceiling on accuracy. The most expensive watches in the world could guarantee an accuracy of perhaps five minutes per month. And while that was very good, it still meant that watches were off by a number of seconds no matter how often they were synchronized.
It took the recent invention of transistors to make an electronic watch feasible. In 1953, Hetzel created a handmade prototype watch using the transistors and a tuning fork. Its accuracy was far better than anything devised to that point. But they required further innovation: a battery small enough and powerful enough to make the watch commercially successful.
Mallory obliged with miniaturized batteries in 1954. By 1955, eight prototype electronic watches were created. Arde Bulova, president of the company, became enthused over the possibility of leapfrogging the competition for the title of producer of the world’s most accurate watch. He directed funding to get all the bugs worked out and to get such a remarkable device on the market.
Hetzel received a promotion and moved to the United States in 1959, spending all of his time on the new watch concept. On October 10th, 1960, Bulova’s new president, none other than former general Omar Bradley, announced the Bulova Accutron Caliber 214, the first electronic watch ever offered for sale to the public.
Vintage Accutron
The watch was a trailblazer. It only had twelve moving parts, and its accuracy blew away the finest mechanical watches in the world. And its cost was not beyond the reach of the middle class.
It was an instant hit, and Bulova advertised it as an Accutron, which is a device more sophisticated than a mere wristwatch. It came with an elaborately printed guarantee that it would be accurate to within a minute per month.
The space age contributed to its success. Bulova was proud to advertise the fact that NASA relied upon its superhuman accuracy for its missions. In fact, Buzz Aldrin had an Accutron on his wrist when he set foot on the moon in 1969. One of the reasons it was selected for use in space was because effects on traditional mainspring-driven watches from zero gravity were unknown. A nice, electrically-powered tuning fork was much more predictable.
The Accutron sold over four million units before it was discontinued in the year I graduated high school, 1977. By then, quartz digital watches were making a minute a month look amateurish. And their prices were nosediving, as well.
But the Bulova Accutron stands today as an innovation that provided the most accurate wristwatches in the world for over fifteen years. Pretty remarkable stuff from a brilliant man who used to scrounge through the city dump for his raw materials.
The year was 1945. The United States had just won World War II, but had already seen the writing on the wall for the next potential conflict. The Russians had proven to be valuable allies during war against the Axis powers, but now that it was over, the basic philosophical differences between the two nations were standing out more and more. Russia was now considered the Next Big Threat.
The B-29 had won the war with Japan, both figuratively and literally. Besides carpeting Japan and Japanese-held islands with conventional ordinance, B-29’s also dropped the two atomic bombs which caused the Japanese, for whom surrender was not an option, to give up.
But the Powers that Be were looking ahead. They had already commissioned a replacement for the B-29, the B-50. But they wanted a bomber with enough range to reach anywhere in the world from United States bases. They wanted the Russians to be afraid, VERY afraid, of what might rain down from above should they cause any threat to democracy.
B-52 in flight
Thus began a competition among aircraft manufacturers in 1945. They were to produce plans for a long-range bomber that would fill the bill.
Boeing won the contest, and was commissioned to begin producing a bomber with piston-driven engines. But it wasn’t long before everyone concerned realized that such an aircraft would prove unsatisfactory.
Jet engines were improving in power and efficiency very rapidly. So Boeing was told to create a prototype that was jet-powered.
On April 15, 1952, the YB-52 flew for the first time. It was a swept-wing design with eight jet engines hung beneath its massive wings. The Air Force liked what they saw.
After a few more revisions, the B-52 was introduced to the general public on March 18, 1954. Air Force Chief of Staff Nathan Twining said: “The long rifle was the great weapon of its day. …Today this B-52 is the long rifle of the air age.” The words proved to be more prophetic that Twining would ever dream.
Pilots and crewmembers soon dubbed the plane “Buff.” The milatarese nickname was short for Big Ugly Fat “Fellow.” Use your imagination about that last word. But the term was affectionate, as the airplane was recognized as a quantum leap in design and functionality.
Just how great was this airplane? Well, longevity is the ultimate test of quality.
Major “King” Kong on a mission in his B-52
Imagine taking a 1955 Oldsmobile, considered a classic by automobile aficionados. Now, let’s install a GPS, night vision (no more pesky headlights), the most advanced and powerful engine that 2008 has to offer, and replace all of the analog instruments with state-of-the-art electronics. While we’re at it, let’s streamline the design a bit, but not so much that the car can’t be instantly recognized as being a design that is fifty years old. Now, imagine if this car could hold its own with the hottest BMW’s, Mercedes’, and Jaguars.
NOW you can begin to appreciate the timelessness of the B-52’s design.
In fact, the airplane, which has not been manufactured since October, 1962, is slated to remain in service until 2040. A total of 744 were manufactured, and today less than 100 continue to fly. But the small fleet provides unparalleled long-range service that the young whippersnapper designs can’t come close to. A large number of the grounded planes exist to provide replacement parts for those still flying.
The airplane also became a part of popular culture with many appearances in movies and television shows, perhaps the most memorable in Stanley Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove.
The next time you look up and spot contrails high in the sky that are in formation, get out your binoculars. You may well spot some of the remaining B-52’s, unassumingly doing their job, as they have since Howdy Doody was on television.
We Boomers are buried in gadgets, as are all other generations running around in the early 21st century. In ten years, I’ve gone from reluctantly carrying a (heavy brick) cell phone to proudly sporting an Android phone that is more of a computer/multimedia center than anything else. We’ve seen TV’s go from huge boxes with tiny black and white picture tubes that cost a month’s worth of wages to inexpensive lightweight flat-panel screens with enough resolution to allow us to count every nose hair on our favorite actors’ visages. Our fathers would rejoice if they could cajole 100,000 miles out of a car without major engine and/or transmission work, my wife’s Camry is about to cross that hurdle and my only concern is whether it springs any microscopic oil leaks over the next few years.
Last night, while switching channels on my nice new 32″ high-def I have in my bedroom, it occurred to me what a sweet little device the TV remote has become, and how important it now is for our day-to-day activities.
The inventor of the device that would ultimately allow us to switch from USA to ESPN was, as you might have guessed (not!), the great Nikola Tesla.
Lazy Bones brochure
The much-maligned inventor, who was always getting upstaged by more ruthless rivals, in 1898 demonstrated a device which would remotely control a powered model boat.
The remote that Tesla demonstrated used radio waves, and its principle would go on to power other models, particularly airplanes and cars.
In 1950, Zenith began selling TV’s that came with “Lazy Bones” controllers, which allowed fathers to switch channels with lots of clicks and gear noises, as the big dial on the TV would rotate its way to the requested spot. The remote itself quickly became known as the “clicker” due to its own loud action.
The Lazy Bones was connected to the TV via a wire. it wasn’t until 1955 that wireless remotes became available. The “Flashmatic” used simple light to trigger a photocell on the idiot box, which unfortunately could be triggered by any other visible light that was shined directly at it.
In 1956, the “Zenith Space Command” was invented, using high-frequency sound to do the job. One downside was that all sorts of ultrahigh frequency sounds were present in the world, and they could switch your channels without your input. Another was that the remote would drive your dogs crazy!
Zenith Space Command remote
Remote-controlled TV’s were a very pricey item. It took the addition of six vacuum tubes to allow the fancy wireless remotes to do their thing. It wasn’t until 1960 that TV remotes became much more affordable. That was because transistors became popular in replacing the expensive, short-lived tubes. But amazingly, the ultrasonic remote control would continue to dominate until the early 80’s.
In 1980, a Canadian company was formed called Viewstar, Inc. They began marketing a cable TV box that came with a revolutionary remote control which operated on infrared light rather than super-high sound frequencies.
It was an instant hit, and there must be a special shrine in doggy heaven for engineer Paul Hrivnak, the mastermind behind the new device, which would allow TV channels to be changed without filling the ether with noise pollution.
Nowadays, it’s difficult to picture a world where the TV, the cable box, the DVD player, etc. would have to be manually operated. Many of us use a single remote which performs a variety of functions and which controls a plethora of devices.
In our childhoods, however, it was a rare and amazing sight to see an individual, a “Lazy Bones” if you will, operate a television with a clicker.
