The Zenith Satellite II – Model SZ2537K

The Twenty Five Year old National Graphic Magazine lay on the table in the small restaurant that we sat in. The magazine is tired after twenty five years of people leafing through it. The pages were worn. Many of the pages were doodled on as someone killed time,

As I turned it over, there on the back page was an advertisement for a Zenith Satellite II – Model SZ2537K Television. It brags that this new model has a capacity for 178 Channels – because of “Smart Set in Zenith’s Computer Brain”. It offers a “Space Command Remote Control” as well as an “Exclusive Ready Plug” – whatever that was…?
The date of the magazine was December 1983… 25 years ago.

My how things have changed in 25 years! The articles in the magazine alone testify to the way it has changed.

I have been thinking of that old Zenith Satellite II TV – that graced the living room of so many homes 25 years ago. WOW – it brought so many memories flooding back.

But the imagination trip didn’t stop there it kept flying backwards to earlier Zenith Radios that I have known and listened to.

When I worked for my Uncle Neal Kirkpatrick in 1958 and 1959 as a summer farm hand we listened to a Zenith Radio in his front room. The radio was likely a 1930 to 1940 floor model that had a green eye on the front top. As the signal was strong the green eye indicated the signal strength.

After that summer of working for my Uncle Neal I bought a Transistor Radio by Zenith. It cost me a bundle of money but its compact size was amazing. It was about the size of a large soft cover book today. It was my one main purchase with all the money that I had made working with my uncle for the whole summer.

I was 15 years old and Zenith was a very big name back then – only 49 years ago. But now when you Google Zenith Satellite II – Model SZ2537K Television – you don’t get much… if anything about the TV. You get offers of information for other stuff – but not this particular TV.

I was reflecting on some of this aging process – when I saw the advertisement for the old TV. It is kind of like my life…maybe yours too. Remember when your own Body had a new “Smart Set in Zenith’s Computer Brain”. It offerd a “Space Command Remote Control” as well as an “Exclusive Ready Plug”…? Remember when what you were doing was cutting edge – standing out against whatever your friends were doing? Remember your job was really something?

I stood in a computer store not long ago and when the youngster asked if he could help me with anything – I said no. He asked if I understood what this new computer would do? He asked if I have used a computer before… CAN YOU IMAGINE the LITTLE upstart… asked me if I knew what a computer was – or have I used one before. I couldn’t answer the silly little store clerk.

He was not even 21 years old! When he was born I had already had 28 years of computer experience.

I wanted to turn and ask him if he knew what a Zenith Satellite II – Model SZ2537K was? I wondered if he had any idea what a “Space Command Remote Control as well as an “Exclusive Ready Plug”…was?

His biting words simply added more weight to burden of the reflective moments… I am older than the Zenith Satellite II – Model SZ2537K which you cannot get parts for and may be able to buy one at a garage sale when someone really old has an estate auction. I am the same age as the Green Eyed Zenith Radio Receiver.

OH Boy!

Yesterday my Best Man “Gord”, from our wedding, turned 65 years old. He is much older than me. I was also his Best Man at his wedding. Gord is old now.

When we talked on the telephone it was fun. We only needed to greet each other to have the flood of memories come wafting back over us. We paused a few times as we both savored the memories that we share. We have promised to not tell our kids some of things that we did together… dumb things that our own kids wouldn’t want their kids knowing.

I think we’re are so much like “Zenith Satellite II – Model SZ2537K” – so amazing in its time – but now not so amazing.

We agreed on the telephone that we still had much in common – still married to our amazing wives that look into their “Zenith Satellite II – Model SZ2537K” - model Husbands and see something.

Both Enid and Alida are ladies of GRACE – sent from God Himself. Amazing! And they have stuck it out for a LONG TIME!

Now if this sets off a FUNKY Mood in my old friends that read this far in a blog… I apologize and say get over it!

We have things that the LITTLE UPSTARTS in the computer department cannot understand… we have dust, we have a hum, and we have blinking Green Eyes that they cannot understand. Hey – we are good!

As for me – I do not want to change a thing… being a “Zenith Satellite II – Model SZ2537K” is so cool!

~ Murray Lincoln ~

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenith_Electronics_Corporation

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2914.html

http://www.tvhistory.tv/1969-Zenith-Ad1.JPG

http://www.oldradiozone.com/strat_16A61.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyl3ygM7txU&feature=related