Watching The Braves
My grandfather was a Braves fan. I’m not sure for how long, if he was a fan only after the team arrived in Atlanta, or if he’d been on board since Milwaukee or even Boston. When a man is born in 1897, appreciation can have some serious history. But he loved the Braves, loved them so much that after Ted Turner bought the team in the late ‘70s and established a cable-only Superstation to broadcast their games, friends and family joined forces to make sure my grandfather could watch.
To get to my grandfather’s house is no small feat. After twisting through back roads and crossing train tracks, you come to a sharp curve to the right. Just as you pass a pond occasionally stocked with fish, turn left and start your ascent. A paved driveway splits in two just above the pond. To the right is my Uncle Pat’s house, to the left is the way to my grandfather’s. By the time you park in front of a pair of now horseless stables, you’re a good fifty feet higher than the road you left. His house is up another grassy hill.
Stretching cable up from the electrical pole down at the curve was far from a sanctioned activity. I doubt anyone even bothered to call the cable company to ask. Cable was new to North Georgia and it wasn’t like they would bend over backward to connect a single rural television. So my Dad and my Uncle called a church friend named Jim who worked for the telephone company. Jim had also been the man responsible for installing a second line on our home, so it was a reasonable guess he’d be capable.
Stringing the line was an all day affair and I wasn’t invited. Something about a trio of amateur linemen stringing possibly live cable was deemed inhospitable to a child. But I was there when the work was done. My Mom, My Aunt and I arrived in time to gather around grandfather’s console television to witness their handiwork.
Unfortunately, the grand old console was not at all “cable-ready” and refused to connect to anything but the rooftop antenna. Undeterred, my Dad and my Uncle hopped in the truck and set out for the store, KMart most likely. About an hour later, they returned with a grey and chrome box about 2/3rds the mass of the console.
They squared against the sides of the console and prepared to lift, carry and remove, when Mrs Ann, my Grandfather’s wife, protested. “Wait, now. That’s good furniture, what are you gonna do with it?” My Dad answered they had a replacement, that the console wasn’t needed anymore, but Mrs Ann wouldn’t hear it. The console was something she polished with Pledge along with the other tables and chests, and she wasn’t going to part with it. With a shrug, my Dad and my Uncle lifted the new television, placed it on top of the old television, attached the cable and pushed the button marked Power. With the knob on the television set to 2, my Dad turned on the off-white descrambler.
It was turned already to channel 17, the Superstation. It was a game day, but the setting up had taken all afternoon. The game was already in progress. I don’t recall if we were winning or won. It didn’t matter. My Grandfather could watch his Braves.
There the television stayed, perched atop the console. Mrs Ann continued to dust the console like the fine furniture it was. My Grandfather never changed the channel. He didn’t need any other television. He was too busy. There were tomatoes to plant in the garden around back, as well as cucumbers, squash, bell peppers, and okra. There were apple trees to check along the field row. There were strings of muscadines to detangle on the side of the house that caught the most sun. And at night, there were metal chairs on the hillside for sitting and watching the sun reflect off a pond that might or might not contain a number of fish.
Then on game nights, alerted by the television guide that came with the Sunday paper, my Grandfather would come in early from the work of the evening, click on the television, turn it up too loud and settle into his enormous chair. His living room would fill with the sounds of murmuring fans, of sportscasters and their trivia, of the stadium organ playing fill-ins between batters, and of the occasional crack of ash against leather. Win or lose, it didn’t matter.
Go Braves.
