The changeover from analog to digital television took place seamlessly, we reported the other day. This can mean one of two things:

(A) It really did go seamlessly, (and why not after Norm Abrams - not to mention other local, regional and national TV personalities - gave months, and months, of instruction in how to set up the converter box?).

(B) The hordes of people who have been complaining about the low quality of TV programming since Newton Minow aptly described the medium as a "vast wasteland" 48 years ago finally found a good excuse to stop watching, but have opted not to tell anyone they jumped off the TV bandwagon.

Take this historic event either way you want, I just wish they had put the conversion off until Aug. 31 or Sept. 1 instead of June 12. That would have been justice - a complete turning of the wheel in a 55-year cycle - for my old neighborhood.

It seems amazing to me now that Ernest Lindgren finally bought a television in 1954. The new medium had been gaining steadily since reliable programming had been introduced in 1947, but it was a wonder that he bought one at all. When he purchased a car, the first thing he did was remove the radio, which he called a "squawk box." He ultimately transferred the name to TV, and seldom called it anything but a squawk box until the day he died in 1958. (He'd have liked "boob tube" too, if he had lived until 1966). There are three theories about why he finally caved on the TV question:

His grandchildren - my sister Carolyn and I - were going missing every Saturday morning. He was quite embarrassed to learn we headed across the street to watch the Saturday morning cartoon lineup (he was only half as embarrassed as he would have been had he known we were actually showing up at the neighbor's house to watch 15 minutes of test pattern before the first show, an art lesson, came on). The embarrassment grew during the week when his grandson would disappear around supper time - to watch "Howdy Doody" in the upstairs neighbor's apartment.

His wife, Gladys, was getting antsy to watch Arthur Godfrey, like her friends were doing, instead of just listening on the radio, and she was hearing good things about this new announcer, Garry Moore, and shows like "I Remember Mama."

And the theory which I find most believable: He had discovered that pro wrestling was broadcast every Saturday night. If all went well, he could see the Swedish Angel, Yukon Eric, Argentina Rocca and some of his other favorites. Even better, every once in a while he'd get to see somebody beat up on Gorgeous George. As much as you loved to see a favorite win, it was better to see a heavy lose.

Of course, things didn't always go well. The shows were broadcast from Chicago. The "rabbit ears" antenna didn't pull in a strong signal. At its best, reception usually covered the screen in snow - unless the vertical or horizontal hold was off, in which case the picture would be dizzily flipping over and over, either horizontally or diagonally. Sometimes with snow, sometimes without.

The rabbit ears did a better job when something like a bowtie made out of aluminum foil was added, or when they were tilted just right, or maybe leaned against a cast iron radiator, or the tips were shut under a window. Better, but never quite right, and you had to guess whether Gorgeous George had won or not, though you could be sure he fought dirty.

This gave rise to some new household customs - banging the TV on the top, slapping it on the side, spinning the channel changer - or, sometimes, very carefully not spinning the channel changer - and endlessly adjusting the rabbit ears. The rule - call it a law - was that only grandfather would bang, slap, spindle or mutilate the channel changer. No one else should do these things for fear that reception of the Saturday night wrestling show would be messed up.

The law was followed very carefully, as long as the old man was home.

By the following spring he had had it with snowy reception, TV-slapping, endless adjustments. He installed a rooftop antenna. While he cared little about keeping up with the neighbors, on this he was happy to be in step.

If our experience was common, in every living room on Falmouth Street, Attleboro, sometime in the spring or summer of 1955 somebody would say "wow, that TV picture's so much better than it was with the rabbit ears." But on Aug. 31 of that year, Hurricane Carol, the most powerful hurricane to hit New England since 1938, made landfall in Connecticut, and hours later swept through Attleboro. After it passed, tree limbs littered the cityscape.

And shinily laying next to them, swept away from their bracings to chimneys and back porches, were rooftop antennas.

A few were reinstalled, but ours, and several others, ended up in the dump. I'm not quite sure why, but that September we were back to slamming, slapping and spinning the TV and adjusting and readjusting and adjusting again the rabbit ears.

Television has registered quite a few milestones since then - new stations and networks have been added. UHF broadened the mix and finally cable and streaming webcasts have arrived. But with the changeover to analog, the promise of clear programming that was held out by low-technology in 1955 and snatched away by a hurricane has finally been realized.

MARK FLANAGAN (mflanagan@thesunchronicle.com) is Opinion Page editor of The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at 508-236-0335.