Time Zone Envy
When I was growing up
in the 1960s…
… in northern Florida, we had one television channel. It was a CBS affiliate and carried Captain Kangeroo at 8 am.
The Captain, Mr Moose and Bunny Rabbit were my reason for being alive in the mornings. I awaited every day for those ping pong balls to drop!
I was also able to see “Lost In Space”… always a big subject of discussion on the playground at school the next day.
We soon were treated to another station popping up on the “air” – WFSU … a PBS station that was very “snowy” on the screen and very boring at the time. A lot of Shakespeare and British accents.
Soon, two other television stations popped up. Both in Panama City, Florida. At first it was an NBC affiliate and much later, an ABC affiliate came on the air.
When the NBC station came on air, my dad put up a really crazy antenna to be able to point towards this distant station so we could receive it on our TV. It was just in time to see this amazing show called “Star Trek” in 1966 which we made sure to see every week.
The NBC station had this little announcement at the beginning of every show – with an animated peacock. They declared it was in “living color”. But they were lying! It was always in black and white on our 19 inch portable television …
They would announce the time. But the time they announced was an hour earlier that the clocks in my house declared!
First, the NBC television channel lied to me about color – now they lie about what time it is ?!?
It was at that young, tender age – I discovered there was a thing called “time zones”. It was quite a shock to me at only nine years old.
There were people living on the same planet – some not too far away – that were in my future! It bent my young mind! How could this be?
There was also a show on the distant NBC channel that I could see on Friday nights. I was able to stay up late because it was not a “school night”. It was a show called “The Tonight Show” with a guy I took a great liking to named Johnny Carson.
It was then I found out that those aliens living in “central time” could see the show at 10:30 pm … But it was 11:30 pm when I could see it.
Those kids in Panama City could see Johnny Carson before having to go to bed !!!
This was not fair!
It was set for lights out at 11 pm for me. So – if I lived in that distant place in the other time zone I could see the first half of Johnny Carson every night?
Not fair!!!
When I got older, I began to travel from Florida to do business in Los Angeles, California.
I would meet people in LA for breakfast. They would still be half asleep at 8 am … but to me – it was 11 am !!! Almost time for lunch ! I could run rings around them with my alertness and win in my business with them every time.
But then – I began to travel to Asia by plane. It would be a day earlier when I got there. My night was their day. It would take an entire week just to catch up.
And when I returned by plane from Asia, I would see the sun set and rise again a couple of times. A whole date on the calendar would disappear! And once back home, it took another week to catch up!
I have been living in Nashville for 20 years now … Central time zone. I feel this is the best time zone to be living in. I get to live an entire hour before those tired people in New York City !!!
Category: Featured, Tony Rollo Blog
