Earlier this week one of my co-workers asked me what I was going to write about this month and I thought, “Dang, I haven’t even thought about that yet.”

After fretting and fuming for a day and a half and as the deadline was fast approaching I realized I better get my act together and start working on it.

It’s been awhile since I wrote a nostalgia column so maybe I can get away with another one.

Since the three couples that Mike and I go out to dinner with almost every Friday are all about the same age (70 something to 80-ish), our conversations often revolve about stuff from the past. The other six folks have lived on the Harbor a lot longer than Mike and I have. We didn’t move here until after the SouthShore Mall opened and much of downtown Aberdeen/Hoquiam had lost its “shop-a-ability” (much as the Longview-Kelso area where we had grown up had suffered from).

Lately we’ve been talking about places they used to shop: JC Penney, Sears, Montgomery Wards, Carole’s Young Things, O’Connor’s Women’s Apparel, Brennan’s, LaVogue, Kress, Bitar’s, Jay Jacobs and Rosevear’s; or places they liked to eat such as Failor’s Cafe, Captain’s Cove, Home Plate Cafe, Smoke Shop, Scott’s Buffeteria, Joe’s Deli and Donut Shop; and where they picked up their groceries: Scott’s Grand Central Market, City Food Mart, Malstrom’s Fine Foods, Stead’s Crescent Market, Stewart’s Shoprite and Linkshire Market.

A couple of Fridays ago when we were on our way home from dinner at Samurai Sushi Bar and Grill, Mike and I started talking about TV shows we had watched as kids. I remember lots of shows about couples/families: Ozzie & Harriett, Leave it to Beaver, Honeymooners, Father Knows Best, Beverly Hillbillies, The Andy Griffith Show, Bewitched, The Donna Reed Show, My Three Sons, The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Lassie. Mike was really good with coming up with a list of cowboy/Wild West programs: The Rebel, Cheyenne, The Virginian, Wanted Dead or Alive, Laramie, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Have Gun Will Travel, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, Roy Rogers, Legend of Wyatt Earp and Death Valley Days.

And then we couldn’t stop until we came up with a list of what I call the game shows/miscellaneous category: Concentration, Beat the Clock, Password, The Match Game, Name That Tune, What’s My Line, I’ve Got a Secret, The Price is Right, Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, Our Miss Brooks, Sea Hunt, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Ed Sullivan Show, 77 Sunset Strip, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Candid Camera, Dragnet, Untouchables, Red Skelton, Highway Patrol, Mr. Ed, Outer Limits, Route 66, Sky King, Adventures of Rin Tin Tin and Adventures of Superman.

I’m guessing my mom and dad watched TV news back in the day with coverage by Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, John Cameron Swayze, Dan Rather, David Brinkley and Chet Huntley, but I certainly was not paying attention to those shows.

It’s hard to imagine we had only three channels to choose from and were watching these shows on a TV with a viewing area smaller than the computer screen I’m using right now. The TV was in the living room and it was only one in the house. If the picture got fuzzy, someone had to walk up to the TV and wiggle the rabbit ears until the image came into focus.

But it was all we had, it was good entertainment and who knew, in 60 or so years we’d be selecting from hundreds of channels on a TV screen bigger that our bathtub.

Karen Barkstrom is the editorial assistant for The Daily World. She can be reached at 360-537-3925 or karen.barkstrom@thedailyworld.com.