When I was a very young boy, I was troubled by frequent earaches. When I had a bad spell, Doctor Gordon would make a house call and give me medication to help with pain. Not sure it helped, but with time the pain went away.

Near Christmas in the late 50s, I was laid up in bed with an earache. It was at that time I first saw the electronic glow of a vacuum tube. The old radio I listened to during the day was turned off as I waited for sleep. But, one night when I could not sleep and the house was quiet, I turned on the radio in the darkness. From inside the radio, a glow escaped through holes in the back. Turning it down low I could listen to an old radio show. They told of Santa’s travels across the world. Do you remember those broadcasts where people played parts in a story? Someone played a radar watcher reporting to the government of Santa’s progress. As I lay there in the darkness, I was fascinated by the glow pulsing from within.

Turning the radio, I could look through small holes in the back. Inside there were glowing vacuum tubes. I wondered how they could bring voices from so far away. To a young boy with an imagination even back then, it seemed like magic. Doc Gordon’s medicine did its job, and I recovered forgetting the mystery of the glowing radio.

Many years later, I began cleaning the Dairy Queen before school in the early mornings. I took over the job from a great guy named Emo Schupbach. He had graduated and was heading to Morgantown to play football for the Mountaineers. He was so proud he was going to WVU he could just bust. But before he left for college, he wanted to help get me started on the job. He didn’t have to, but he just felt it was the right thing to do. That’s the kind of guy he was, and why I remember him so fondly. Every morning before we began our work, he turned on an old Philco radio that he kept under the front counter and said, “You ready Governor?” Never did know why he called me governor.

We only turned on enough light to do our job. Inside in the early morning, it was on the dark side. Under the counter was the radio. Damaged and glued together, the back side covering was missing. The tube’s light was not trapped and made a warm glow spreading in the morning darkness. It was not much of a radio with its cracked case and exposed insides. And the only station it could pick up was WETZ. After Emo headed off to college, I carried on his tradition of turning on the radio each morning and listening to Swap and Shop by the glow of the radio tubes. I still smile when I think of Emo Schupbach.

When Mary and I got married, we moved to southern New Mexico where I was stationed in the Air Force. We started off with very little. When we got off the plane in El Paso, we had her life’s savings and my old car. Not a pot, pan or a roof over our heads to begin our married lives. We spent the first few weeks in a hotel until we found an old trailer to live in. It was clean and the doors locked, that was enough to begin with. I know Mary had to spend some of those first nights away from home wondering what she had gotten herself into. We ate chili and hamburger helper more times than I can count those first few years. Hamburger Helper is still off our menu.

Our first Christmas in 1970 we could not afford a TV. Such a luxury was outside of our financial ability that first year. But by some holiday luck, we saw an old B&W television put out for the trash. It had no outside case and no knobs to turn it on or change channels, but I managed to get it to work. We had a pair of channel locks beside the television to turn it on and change channels.

That first Christmas we watched holiday shows and thought of home 2200 miles away. It was Mary’s first Christmas away from home. Turning the overhead lights off, the TV became the only light in the room with a warm glow from the tubes inside the television. Once again, the glow from a vacuum tube created a memory in my life.

When I gave my grandson the vacuum tube, I hoped he could understand the glass device was more than a piece of old history, it was part of my life. He asked, “Papa, how does it work?” I started to explain…“Inside there are cathodes, electrodes and filaments, and electrons pass between them creating…” Then I stopped my technical explanation and said, “In my life, electronic tubes produced warm comforting glows filled with memories. I hope this tube is filled with memories of this time in your life. The glow of warmth is from family memories created at this special time of year.” I told him, “Google vacuum tubes, and discover the magic for yourself and remember back Through the Lens.