There were some Saturdays when I was lucky enough to be home and Dad was busy elsewhere. This was especially true for a period in childhood when he would help one of my uncles with his TV business. Dad would be out for the afternoon, so peace would descend on our house.
Once my cleaning chores were done, I would try to tune the TV antenna just right to see if I could get reception for the New York City TV channels. These were the channels we watched in Bridgeport at my grandparents’ house, and I was determined to watch them at home, even if “just barely.”
For the most part, it was impossible since we were too far north for a good signal. But once in a while, conditions would be right so that I could at least HEAR the old movies they played in the afternoons, and if I was REALLY lucky, I might even be able to see snowy figures moving through the static on the TV screen. I would literally sit right in front of the screen, something that drove my mother crazy because there was a concern back then that the TV emitted too much radiation from its cathode ray tube. I don’t know if it was that big a deal, but for sure it could strain your eyes. But I wanted to watch my shows.
On Saturday afternoons, there were 3 main channels out of New York that did great old movies.
One of my favorite channels was WNEW-TV Channel 5. On Saturdays, they often played 1950s horror movies like “It Came From Outer Space” or ones based on the nuclear fears of the time. A couple of classics were “Fiend Without a Face,” about radiation-driven invisible brains attacking people, and the other was “Them,” about ants exposed to radiation from the Alamogordo nuclear tests. Somehow, they mutated into people-eating giant ants. While the military managed to destroy most of them, one queen managed to catch a train ride to LA and set up a nest in the Los Angeles storm sewer system. Of course, two boys wandered into the tunnels and were captured. Just before they were eaten, the movie’s hero and the military rescued them, but not before the hero became ant-lunch.
The other two channels to scope out were WOR-TV Channel 9 and WPIX-TC Channel 11. Channel 9 had the “Million Dollar Movie,” which could be anything from King Kong or Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, to Citizen Kane. And WPIX-TV Channel 11 could be counted on for old comedies.
There were also old Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, and my old favorite, The Thunderbirds. That was the show out of the UK, which used marionette figures as the heroes of the family-run group — “International Rescue.” They were based on a hidden island and had all kinds of rockets, submarines, and rescue equipment. I always had to look hard for some of those programs, because I was never sure what channels they might be on.
But the bottom line was that even if I could only “hear” these programs, they were my delight and relief on a Saturday afternoon. Yet another “Moment of Respite” to escape into.
Soul Mosaic 
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