A childhood belief about speaking

I remember the loudest thing ever on TV. It was on Friday night, at probably 9:15 or so, just as the latest episode of Mannix was really getting underway. The camera would cut to a shot of a big, black, heavy telephone (so common then), and it would ring like all the church bells in the world going off at the same time. This happened at least once every episode.

I'd be sound asleep on the floor in my jammies by then, after having gorged myself on popcorn and my own 16-oz. bottle of Coke (in the original curvy glass bottle). I'd practically leap up to the ceiling in fright.

We kids thought Mannix was the last word in extreme TV, because there was something in one of the constant commercials for the show (it was quite the hit back then) about how he "had the guts to get the job done."

The worst phrase any of us had ever used was, "I hate your guts!" and we all knew how much trouble we'd get into for saying it. So it seemed that "guts" was the key word, because you could say, "I hate broccoli!" without the Four Horseman (with my mother at their head) riding down on you. So we were awed that we could hear this awful word spoken, right out in front of everything, and nobody got yelled at.

On another note, my younger brother referred to Clarence on The Mod Squad as the "The Chocolate Man." At age 4 or so, nothing could convince him that poor Clarence wasn't like one of those solid chocolate Easter bunnies.