The Electronic Hearth

I remember my father pulling all the tubes from our broken TV set while my mother, paceing nervously, cautioned my father not to electrocute himself in front of the children. Each glass tube was carefully extracted, wrapped in tissue, and nestled in an old shoe box for transport to the town’s only drug store where a tube tester much like this would uncritically decide whether our family would continue to fall asleep bathed in the magical glow of the Magnavox.