Whenever I see a verse like Psalm 144.15 (Blessed are the people whose God is the LORD!), it reminds me of television in earlier times.  Back in the day, people had to be present to run the programming; the automated process of starting and stopping a tape, disc or DVD had not yet been invented.  There was lots of “dead air” time because there weren’t enough customers watching in the late and early hours of the day and you had to pay the technicians to broadcast the shows.

In the 1950s and 1960s, as far as I can remember, the stations in the St Louis area would put up a test pattern of varying shapes; the only one that made sense was the Indian head at the top. Google tells me it was some sort of card that was originally transmitted by RCA from New Jersey in 1939 and became the iconic dead air viewing option.  And, you can purchase retro t-shirts, ties and other garments that display the pattern.

I knew about the Indian not because I was staying up too late, but because I would get up too early on Saturday mornings, hoping the cartoons would be available.

The Indian head went away about the time color came along – by that, I mean color TV became more prevalent.  I do not hold with the teachings of Calvin’s father (of Calvin and Hobbes fame), who famously told his mischievous little boy that color wasn’t invented until the ‘60s – that’s why all the old photographs are black and white.  In any case, the new test pattern often included vertical slices of common colors and the dead air projections became much more varied.

In the 1970s one of the local Lansing stations would have a picture of an American flag, with the words of Psalm 33.12:  “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD!” That was when you COULD and you WOULD do such a thing. COULD, not because there were any legal limits, but because you did not have so many reruns, infomercials, and reality shows to choose from – it seems that every channel fills up all its time with programming that someone must think is more entertaining (or lucrative) than a test pattern.  For the WOULD part of 1970s dead air broadcasting, I like to think that someone preferred a Bible verse with a flag more than some colored stripes.