Another Abandoned Gas Station on the Highway of Life
Best Buy is discontinuing the sale of analog TV’s. That shouldn’t be a big deal. I own and enjoy an HD TV. Though, it wouldn’t kill TimeWarner to carry a few more HD channels. It’s not like the event wasn’t well announced and coming. Still, when the largest electronics retailer in the country decides that it’s time to pack it in on the venerable old “boob tube”, it just hits home.
I was 5 when my parents bought our first TV. It was a counsel with doors you could close over the screen. We only got VHF. That meant we got 3 channels. That box changed my entire life.
I was into everything that happened on that set. So much so that my dad complained that I was ignoring him. He came home about the time Howdy Doody was on.
It was a time before shows could be prerecorded. Everything was live and as small as I was that had an impact on me. What came through that screen was unedited humanity. Mistakes were real. Embarrassments were genuine.
At that age I didn’t understand the pathos of humor. The pain of Jackie Gleason on “The Honeymooners” was real to me. During particularly poignant moments I would close the doors of the cabinet over the screen then peak through the crack between the doors. Somehow it made the pain those people on the screen suffered more bearable. I find it interesting that I could not turn off the human drama or look away.
In our search for perfection in television and the movies we’ve taken great technical strides in editing, animation and recording, but we’ve lost something. The connection we get as humans one to another from a live interaction. If you get a chance watch some of the old black and white dramas and you’ll feel what I mean. Go me one better and buy a ticket to a live performance at a theater.
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POSTED IN: Being A Boomer
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