![[Late] Saturday Review: "Everything But War"](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/aaseaside-150x150.jpg "[Late] Saturday Review: \"Everything But War\"")
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
by Shel Silverstein
The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
“Where to? what next?”
— Carl Sandberg
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Back in the Sixties, when I was a wee sprat, my brothers or myself were the remote. French kings had human chesspieces, Ottoman caliphs had human footstools, and Mom and Dad had us.
Is it also a death ray?
Most modern remote controls use infrared, though I suppose some may be migrating to bluetooth or something similar. But I recall that back in the day I saw a remote control that worked on an audio signal. The remote had something like small tuning forks, rods of metal that would vibrate when you pressed one of the buttons. I can’t remember what brand of TV they were for. They were probably black & white sets.
Our first remote control TV was also our first color TV. I’m talking about the one my dad bought in 1970, one of those big wooden floor jobs by Magnavox. The remote was big, maybe 8″ x 8″ and it had to be pointed right at the TV, no bank shots allowed. Funny thing was that the wheels on my mothers vacuum cleaner squeaked and turned the TV on and if you dropped a dime, not a quarter, not a nickel, a dime, on the terrazzo floor the TV would turn off. Of course, as Monty described above, my parents had remote controls for everything from the beginning.
Bonus round: About 10 years later (1980) I was living in Redondo, CA and a friends wife worked as a receptionist for Magnavox in Torrance. She said Magnavox was developing an inter-office newsletter and they wanted the employees to come up with a name for the newsletter and whomever’s name they chose would receive a 100 dollar bill. Off the top O’ my skall I told her, “Video Sentinel” which she liked and submitted and won. When she got that C note her and her husband (an army buddy) and me and my skweez at the time went and chowed like big Dawgz at the 94th Aero Squadron. Nom, nom, nom. So there ya go, I have sort of a detached connection to Magnavox.