Oral History with Billie Brinkerhoff

Billie Brinkerhoff Oral History Project
Interview with Billie Lou Benson Brinkerhoff
Date of Interview: March 9, 2009; Orem, Utah
Interviewer: Stacy Brinkerhoff Thiot
Transcriber: Stacy Brinkerhoff Thiot
(Recorded on a Mac Book Pro- Microsoft Notes)

Stacy: The point of this interview is that I am taking a media history class and we need to interview somebody about your recollection working with the media growing up.

Stacy: What was your first source of media exposure?

Billie: You mean like the newspaper or something?

Stacy: Yes, like if you had a radio growing up, or if you wanted to hear or listen to the news, would you listen to the radio or read the newspaper?

Billie: To get the news, I would read the newspaper, but most of the time I would listen to the radio to listen to music. I was just a kid…

Stacy: Did your family receive a newspaper?

Billie: Yes.

Stacy: Which newspaper?

Billie: Kansas City Star.

Stacy: Did you read that from a young age?

Billie: Yes.

Stacy: When did you start evolving to the TV?

Billie: Yeah, I remember we were one of the first ones to get it, my dad was one of the first ones to get television. And it was after Phil was born, around 1948, something like that. My first television was about like this, about that wide (showing 8-12 inches with fingers) he and Phil would sit there and watch it.

Stacy: Was it in black and white?

Billie: Black and white. They would sit there and watch cartoons and some sports.

Stacy: Did you ever, you said earlier you worked with telephones, were you a secretary?

Billie: Yes, when I was in college.

Stacy: What did you do?

Billie: When I was in college, I answered the telephone because the girls didn’t have them in there rooms. That was my job, an hour a day I worked in the office and took messages for the girls that were at school. So when they came home from school they would get a message.

Stacy: They were allowed at that time to go to the office and call?

Billie: Yes.

Stacy: Were you in college at this time?

Billie: Yes.

Stacy: So you would take an hour out of your day?

Billie: Yes, it was a paying job.

Stacy: Do you remember how much you were paid?

Billie: Very little, I don’t know.

Stacy: As of today what is your consumption of television, magazines?

Billie: Haha, as of today I watch even more than I ever have, I have nothing else to do.

Stacy: Is that what you spend most of your time doing; reading newspapers, magazines, and watching television?

Billie: Yes, I read magazines and I read the newspaper. I have a newspaper that comes every day.

Stacy: What magazines do you read?

Billie: People and the Ensign are the main ones I get.

Stacy: So you watch television to keep the time moving?

Billie: Yes.

Stacy: What programs do you like the best?

Billie: I like the news the best.

Stacy: Like CNN?

Billie: No, Fox News. They have some really good commentators that I like to listen to . Of course I like mysteries, the programs like law and order, CSI and those are the ones I like. And I’m not into comedy or anything like that.

Stacy: So you don’t like Chuck?

Billie: I’ve never watched it. ☺

Stacy: Because I know aunt Kris loves Chuck and tries to get us to watch it!

Billie: Yes, I don’t watch that. But that’s ok for her to watch.

Stacy: Over the years, what are your feelings on the changes from the little 6-inch television to today, is it incredible to see all of those changes?

Billie: Oh, sure it is. It’s amazing. The new things you can see now, right in front of your eyes, a plane blow up or something that is very realistic. All of the news you see today.

Stacy: Do you ever go on the internet?

Billie: No, I don’t know anything about the internet.

Stacy: What’s your favorite part about the news? Politics, entertainment, celebrities, crime?

Billie: I like the talking about politics, especially when there is a campaign. I am very interested in the news, very interested, watching it evolve. For instance, like when 9/11 happened, from that time on I was very interested daily about what happened and how it had evolved. I guess that’s my favorite part. I don’t like sitcoms you know.

Stacy: When you were raising children, what do you remember your media consumption being?

Billie: Like the television?

Stacy: Yes, the television. Like did you watch a lot of television? When you were raising kids, you were too busy to watch a lot of television, what did you do to get the news?

Billie: We always took the newspaper and grandpa always took Time magazine and we read that and the Church magazines. Those were the main ones. I had Parrot magazine.

Stacy: So you remember when television went from black and white to color, correct?

Billie: Pretty much, yeah.

Stacy: Do you remember when that was?

Billie: Oh it was after I had kids.

Stacy: Was that a big change?

Billie: Yes, it was a big change, but a gradual change because it was very expensive and people couldn’t afford it. So it wasn’t something they could just start and everyone could get because it was very very expensive.

Stacy: Just speaking of television and kids, I think a lot of people use that as a babysitter today.

Billie: Yes, they do.

Stacy: What did you do to keep your kids entertained? Was television a common babysitter back in the day?

Billie: Very. They liked to watch Howdy Doody, what am I trying to think of… that little horse and gun smoke, not so much that, they were older when they watched that. But there was Lone Ranger, Toado. There were other shows like that, little innocent shows- Cisco Kid, Lone Ranger lots of ones like that. They’re not like the ones today that are violent.

Stacy: What was grandpas favorite form of the media?

Billie: Reading.

Stacy: I know that you like to read the newspaper and magazines like that. So does my dad. But I don’t think my generation really reads the newspaper as much as older generations.

Billie: The newspaper is what we depended on mostly. We watched the 10 O’clock news, the main news in the evening. And we watched other news programs. And at that time, when I was having kids, we watched comedy like I love Lucy and those type of comedies. We all liked that, the whole family. And there were several like that, not as good, but similar.

Stacy: Do you think the media helps families bond or that it separates them?

Billie: It probably separates them. I have to admit that I … I was trying to think. I think it was your dad was the one I was talking to, no it was Kristen, she was about 6-7 years old maybe a little younger. And the kids were upstairs and she and Phil were up in their television room watching television and Mark and I never got to watch the television because the kids took it. So for Christmas time we bought them a little television, for $50, little black and white television- so we could have ours back. I don’t know, a few days after that, Kristen came down and she was hanging around. I didn’t know what was the problem. So I asked, “what’s the matter honey?” she said, “I wanted to watch the…” So I said, “well you and Phil can watch that” and she said, “I know” and I said, “well what’s the matter?” “You’ve got everything we’ve got, you’ve got popcorn and drinks like us.” You’ve got your program and I said, “you don’t like our program” she answered, “no,” and I said, “well, don’t really like Howdy Doody.” And this was a program Mark and I really wanted to see and I said, “well what’s the difference?” she said, “well, you’re not there… I don’t’ like it because you’re not there.” She wanted to watch her program with me.

Stacy: So it was separating the family

Billie: It was.

Stacy: At the same time, do you think that families can get to together to watch movies and it keeps them together like an FHE?

Billie: I’ve never thought of that.

Stacy: So do you think overall that media is a good thing or a bad thing?

Billie: Well…?

Stacy: There are positives and negatives?

Billie: There’s positives and negatives about both. I have seen people now that it is THE babysitter. Real little children, before they’re a year old, they’re plopped in front of a television to keep them distracted. And I understand that, it’s a real distraction to do something, like help the other kids with their homework, so I can understand that, but it is a distraction. And I have thought many times that I didn’t use it as much as I could have because it wasn’t used like that. I don’t know what I would have done if I had the same opportunities as a babysitter does now.

Stacy: We don’t play with kids like we used to back in the days.

Billie: It’s very true. And I know I did it some, but it wasn’t used as much in those times as it is now.

Stacy: I feel like there was a different use back then, it was to get news out and have television programs to entertain. And now it’s the kids come home from school and immediately watch television.

Billie: My kids never did that. We always believed in them playing outside. Or they were in boys scouts and girls activities after school. I do like we did a better job at that, but we didn’t know any better. It just happened there were more of those things available than they are now.

Stacy: Do you feel your media consumption nowadays, like reading magazines and watching television, how many hours a day does it take up?

Billie: Mine?

Stacy: Yes

Billie: Well since I don’t have anything to do…

Stacy: Haha.

Billie: No, I’m truthful with you. If I had a job, when I had a job, kids to watch or something to do, then I wouldn’t watch it so much. But when you’re just like me now, I just sit here and look at the pictures. But I Do read the newspaper almost everyday and I have it delivered here.

Stacy: On a typical day, what do you do?

Billie: Wake up, eat breakfast, usually turn the morning news on, to hear if there has been an earthquake or what, you know sort of bringing you up to date. I read the newspaper in the morning. …So strange, I can’t even think of what I do in the morning. I get dressed. Of course at my age it’s a lot different. I’ll go back, before Mark died, we walked a lot, and I walked by myself too, we always walked. I enjoyed doing that, it was different when I walked an talked with him, but it’s different now. That was years before I came up here, more than 15. And after he died, I walked by myself because I enjoyed walking, I’d walk an hour or so, lots of times, in the winter I walked in the mall before it opened. And we just walked in the halls.

Stacy: Toward the afternoon you have your DVR and record your programs… CSI?

Billie: I watch the different programs that I have recorded, and I listen to certain programs in the afternoon. And I read my Ensign and People magazine that I buy.

Stacy: I remember coming to your house and you would always be reading, and I thought my grandma has to be so smart, she reads all of these books and you did crossword puzzles. Do you still do crossword puzzles?

Billie: It was the saddest thing of my life when I had to give them up, I have Dementia now, and I just can’t remember. I just can’t do the things I used to. About 3-4 months ago, I decided I had to give it up because it became so frustrating, and I knew that I knew it and I knew those words and I just sit there and look at them and think oh my heavens. I can’t remember what that word is, and it’s something I’ve known for years, and finally I just gave it up.

Stacy: Do you still read books?

Billie: Oh yea, I still read books. I’m on a series right now about those people in Africa in the 1800s. I’m reading the last one now, there are eight books.

Stacy: So you read some books, and you watch the nighttime news?

Billie: That’s usually the last thing I watch before I go to bed. I watch the weather to see if the weather is bad for the next day. I am very interested in the news around the world.

Stacy: I spend most of my days on the internet, and I don’t watch news programs on television, because I get it off the internet. But it’s different for you, you still watch tem on television.

Billie: Yep. Well I have to admit that I feel really dumb about the internet. It’s part of this whole thing I’ve got in my head. I just cannot remember what to do or where to go….

Stacy: I think it’s definitely a newer generation tool.

Billie: That’s right. And I tried it for a while and it frustrated me so much. And I finally I thought, I either keep trying that and keep getting frustrated or I can just say, That’s not for me and I do what I do through the newspaper. I say, the internet, that’s for my grandchildren. You know like a helicopter, or something else that I can’t do, and I just don’t worry about it. Because it makes me frustrated.

Stacy: Did you listen to the radio a lot when you were younger?

Billie: Oh, yes.

Stacy: Do you remember the programs on the radio?

Billie: Yes. They had one called Ferber McGee and Molly. Haha. That was kind of like I love Lucy, it was a comedy, and it was so funny. She would say, “’tain’t so McGee.” It was a kind of story.

Stacy: Ok, so would you sit down every night and listen?

Billie: Oh they weren’t on every night. They were on one night a week, like I love Lucy. They had all these different kinds of programs.

Stacy: So what if you missed it one week?

Billie: It was more of a comedy so that you could just pick it up and it wasn’t like a mystery like who killed who?

Stacy: So, you’re favorites are the mysteries?

Billie: My favorites were and are mysteries.

Stacy: I love watching Law and Order and I always wondered who I get it from. It’s you!

Billie: You know, not too long ago, while quite a while ago I guess, like 40 years ago, there was Dick Tracy and all kinds of things like that, those kinds of mysteries on television.

Stacy: Anything else you want to mention about the media?

Billie: I can’t think of anything. I have been terribly disappointed in the last few years, where before the media was clean and it might have been a mystery, but it wasn’t violent mystery. For instance, your great-grandmother Brinkerhoff, she loved mysteries, she would go to the Library and get a whole bag of books because that’s what she read. She wouldn’t have been caught dead reading these when they’re butcherin’ people.

Stacy: So is that why you record television, so you can fast forward the bad parts and choose what you watch?

Billie: Yes.

Stacy: That’s the way you like it?

Billie: Yeah, and I… a lot of it I, even when I’m reading g I do that. I’ve got authors I won’t touch, but the ones’ that I do read, if I see something coming up and it’s not what I want, I just flip over three or four pages.

Stacy: Who’s your favorite author?

Billie: James Patterson

Stacy: What’s your favorite movie?

Billie: I love Law and Order and several of those kind of like that, I’m trying to think of what they are. There are three or four that I really don’t like to miss.

Stacy: Thank you!