When I read stories like Gothick's, I'm always grateful for how lucky I was. Not only did my mom support me watching DS, more often than not she watched it with me because she was also a fan. She also supported my nearly insane desire to get my hands on everything I could related to the show. (The only time she ever questioned something I was doing was when I spent hours transcribing an audio tape I'd made of NoDS so that I could write up my own synopsis of the film. But I told her it was all Paperback Library's fault that I had to do that because they didn't release a novelization of NoDS.
And I'm sticking to that story 'til this day!
)
I also missed episodes whenever I would stay later at school or when I was on vacation, but I was lucky enough to have a lot of friends who would fill me in on what I'd missed. Though my most useful way to keep up with the show when I knew I wasn't going to be able to catch it came along in '68 after I was vacationing/visiting in Texas with one of my aunts, and she explained to me how I could use a timer to turn on/off the audio tape recorder she'd given me as a gift and the TV so that I could record DS whenever I wanted to. And even though I couldn't see it, I could hear it - and then all my friends had to do was simply fill in the bits whenever all there was was music on the tape. I have to say I was extremely grateful to her for explaining that. And it was definitely quite an efficient pre-VCR process.