Rutherford, Betty

Often we would eat snacks, like maple syrup and bread, while watching TV, which brings to mind another family tradition, chair saving. When we watched TV in the living room, we all had our preferred chair to sit in and there were conflicts over some of the premium seats. After supper, in the dining room usually, we raced to the living room to get there first to claim our chair. Once seated and watching TV, when a commercial started if we had to get up and go to somewhere important, like the kitchen for 'essentials' (more maple syrup or bread?) we would yell 'Saved' which meant our chair was protected from others claiming it. However if you forgot to say 'Saved' then it was fair game for another member of the family to move to it. Back then in the olden days, the TV shows & commercials ran continuously, relentlessly. Imagine if you will, there was NO PAUSING or REWINDING!! So we had to run our errands (after yelling 'Saved' of course) and hope we got back before the commercials ended and the show started again. That helped to keep us kids active; you had to be in shape to beat the commercials.