TV classics: Kids raved over it

I was too young and innocent to understand what was going on around me at the time. It was February 8, 1974,

Bus strike dispute settled? What was that all about? And what was the big thing about Disco 40?

Trips to the Friendly Store and Piggly Wiggly were a treat for me. Dressed in turtleneck sweaters and purple bell-bottoms, my attention as a three-year-old was completely fixed on the evening shows.

Preceding Gunsmoke was The Six Million Dollar Man. Seeing Steve Austin’s plane hit the runway for the very first time began a love for this phenomenally successful show that was the talk of every kid from Rockland’s Estate to the playgrounds of Mount Saint Agnes.

You can have Disco 40 and the forty thieves, a man half human and half machine running at 60 miles an hour was everything to this little munchkin.

With my mother and father at the Reefs having dinner, there was no fear of watching anything too violent. “Love is all around, why don’t you take it. . .” came the catchy tune to the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

And she did make it, in the tough world of tv news. Since it was Friday night, all the better — no school until Monday, which meant trips to the Annex Store and the Bus Stop Restaurant. Ahhh, they don’t make hamburgers like they used to.