Did anyone have a big box at home with a tiny black and white screen in the middle?// My Experiences.

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Today, it is to me like the memories of a dream, getting my mind through the pass in remembrance of those good old childhood days. One would perceived it like it did happened yesterday in a dream of the night hahaha 🤣 🤣. Memories are like dreams. Should incase you do not know; Should you live upto a 100 years in age, the remembrance of your good young days would be like an event that took place yesterday haha!! They appear very blur in memory, like one who tries to have his night dreams remembered.

Days are fleeting, and as fast as bullets speed. Who would have known that days will come where you could touch the wall and have light in a glass ( bulbs ) that makes the day out of the night ? Or that someday we will have a rope (wires) hung upon poles that distribute energy ( electricity) to small villages and that somehow those villages becomes city someday? Humm!! That's how time flies. Even in those days when watching of images in little box with a small screen in the middle (television)was like beholding a craft made by a god.

Then, we used to have this kind of box with screen in the middle ( television) our own was very large and long. You will have to drag the screen cover to the left side of the box before you could see the screen. My dad usually calls it then, "Akwa ekebe", in Efik dialect which is interpreted as; "biggest box". The visions where black and white, sometimes the images will make dance (shaking) and you will have to hit the box at the top to get the images stable.

Was your own black and white screen a fun ?: I had group of friends who liked coming around in the evening to watch "super story" ( a drama that was usually a fun, was more of family settings) and we would stay for more than an hour watching the drama and discussing about it. I only have fun when watching the box with my friends. But when once it 9:00PM, my dad will come in and tune ( because the box had a manual tuner that was like a radio tuner, with numbers written about the tuner) to what station where he would be comfortable listening to a lady in black and white dress reading from a paper 📜🗞️ (news). Then, the fun ends for the day, because he will sit there with his legs lifted upon the middle table ( centre table ) watching the the lady spoke her words in English; words read from a paper book ( reading news ) until his mind is called out to the dream land, ( until he sleeps) then he begins to snore. I would have to wake up and turn off the box; "kak! kak! kak! kak!", it sounded that way. I bet, you won't dare turn on this at night because of the turning noise, almost to wake everyone in the room.

I will tap my dad at the back, "papa papa papa", until he wakes, then I will bid him good night. Those days where really fun, because no one knew what the future had to offer in technology. What we had then was the best at it's performance, what else could I have compared it to ?.

Connection problems: One of the issues I had then with our AKWA EKEBE ( biggest box ) was connection problems. When I find difficulty connecting it to the antenna, 📡 like most times it will make a dance ( shaking) and I will hit the box from the top very hard, but my dad will yell at me; "Ekpez stop that!, don't you know I bought that television before a married your mother ? If I was hitting it that way, would you have come to meet it ? Stop!", but then, the black and white images in the screen kept dancing, until I had turned to the backyard to move the antenna to different corners, then I will call at my younger bro, "Eteyen! Is the screen stable ?", then I will hear a tiny voice from the living room giving me reply base on the condition.

The fun was much and unending, untill time deed past that brought us a different set of box and screen in the middle with people dresses coloured ( colour television). I will not talk on this till some other time, but hey! Then, black and white TV was the real gear of it time.
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