365 True Things: 259/TV

When I was a kid, we had a black-and-white TV. I remember well when my friend Elaine's family became first on the block to have a color set, with its round tube. I must have been about eight.

I don't recall what-all I watched back then, but I do know I was only allowed to watch half an hour a day. Moreover, I was not allowed to touch the TV: my parents had to turn it on for me. I watched Lassie, no doubt. Father Knows Best (my dad surely approved of that one). The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason (because my dad liked it). Leave It to Beaver. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. The Dick Van Dyke Show. I don't recall watching I Love Lucy then, though I certainly enjoy it now. I believe the half-hour rule was relaxed on Sundays when The Wonderful World of Disney was on.

I never watched The Ed Sullivan Show (it was an hour, after all), so when phenomena like The Beatles and Elvis were on, I had to hear about it second hand from my friends whose parents were more enlightened (or lenient, or maybe just wanted the kids out of their hair).

I don't remember my parents watching TV, but they must have, because I also have memories of shows like Gunsmoke, Have Gun, Will Travel, and Bonanza, or what about The Man from U.N.C.L.E.? Those wouldn't have been my picks—plus, they were an hour long. Maybe I was allowed to watch with the adults? If my homework was finished? Or maybe it was on overnighters at friends' houses. I don't rightly recall.

One strong memory of my grandmother, who lived in the Bay Area and we visited infrequently, is of the show Wagon Train playing in the background as we arrived and I was instructed to kiss her crepe-y, pink-powdered cheek. She had filmy brown eyes and offered me hard candies from a little crystal bowl.

Of course I remember sitcoms like My Favorite Martian, Gilligan's Island, The Addams Family, Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and All in the Family, but that was later, after I challenged my father on his draconian rules. My rebellion came about when a Japanese student of my father's visited with his wife and five-year-old—I still remember the little monster's name, Tetsuo—and it was okay for the child to turn the TV on, when I, at the ripe old age of eleven, still needed to ask permission. After that, I watched a little more TV. Maybe a whole hour, on the odd day.
 
But all in all, the damage had been done: I never became much of a television watcher. Once I went off to college, I rarely had a TV to watch. Even today, we don't subscribe to cable, so the only access we have to network television is via the internet or disk. I certainly don't understand how people can always have their TV going, or how they can spend entire evenings watching just whatever. Even satellite TV, so far as I can tell, is pretty much a wasteland, even with all those channels.

That said, I can't say I don't occasionally binge-watch a series, like Breaking Bad or the Danish The Bridge or The Big Bang Theory, by way of DVDs or Netflix streaming. Right now we're immersed in Jekyll (waiting for the next disk) and Last Tango in Halifax, a bittersweet confection. But most evenings I'd just as soon sit with a good book as watch the tube.

So, I thank my father for insisting that there are better things to do than veg in front of the television. Though at the end of his life, that's exactly what he did. Charlie's Angels was his favorite. I still find that hard to believe. And not just a little sad . . .