Inauguration memory

When I was a little girl, I certainly didn't know if my parents struggled with money issues. Mother was a good manager, Daddy told me after she was dead, and she worked long hours and scrimped and cut corners in every way possible for us to have the things we did. A quick look through our black and white Christmas photos can verify that. If my sister and I wanted for anything under the tree, I don't remember it. I can probably blame this on what I always perceived as Mother's Depression-era childhood. She didn't have much, if anything, but her children would.

I give this background only to say that the impending inauguration has jostled loose a memory. We had a small, portable, black and white television, one that my Dad took off work to bring up to my fourth grade classroom. I remember the teacher getting a rolling cart and (at least) one of the other fourth grade classrooms coming in to join us. Daddy adjusted the rabbit ear antenna and together we all watched John Kennedy be sworn in.

Now, classrooms are cable connected or everyone can gather around the computer monitor. But 48 years ago, it was a treat, and for me and a few classrooms at West Ward Elementary in McKinney, Texas, it was brought to us by my parents.