A Telly Addict's 18 Clean Years

Imagine walking along without an umbrella. It’s raining. Passers-by with umbrellas are giving you weird looks. No problem, really. You have a hat that you wear when it’s raining, one that does a fine job of keeping you dry. Who needs an umbrella? You’ve never used one of the things before anyway. Ponder over what your mindset would be like in this scenario, and there you go! You now understand what it was like for yours truly to grow up without having a TV in the house.
If this memoir was a book then I would have about five hundred readers recovering from shock at this point. They’d also be asking what kind of household I grew up in and why in the world we didn’t have a television. Yes we could afford one, but my dad didn’t believe in having one in the house. I think my parents may have had one some time before I was born, but as for myself, I was never around a TV unless I went over to a friend’s house.
Naturally this situation was hard for many of my friends to understand. There is one old conversation that I have gone through many times using more or less the same words.
The topic of entertainment will come up in a normal conversation.
“So, Dave, did you watch Survivor last night?”
“Nah.”
“Oh, man! You missed it!” (Plot description/ruination) “You’ve gotta watch it sometime, it’s the greatest thing…”
“Well, actually…”
“What about that other show that just came out, uh, what was it…”
“Actually I don’t even have a TV.”
(Silence) I have come to enjoy the look of astonishment and pity the other person gives me. After at least a few seconds they regain the ability to speak: “Are you serious?! No way! That’s…you don’t have a TV?” The next phrase is one I can be sure I’ll hear every time I mention the lack of a cathode-ray tube in my living room: “What do you do all day?”
Time for me to cackle and begin filling their brains with the most horrible thoughts. “I read…” (Gasp!) “I go outside…” (Oh, no.) “Ride my bike…” They run screaming away. Okay, that’s my fantasy scenario. Actually, the other kids usually accepted the above hobbies as good ways to pass the time, but still continued with: “But why don’t you have a TV?” Most of the time they would walk away still not able to grasp the why of the whole thing.
Was I sheltered? Sure I was, but there’s a difference between sheltered and neglected. Perhaps my parents could have exposed me to the world a little more, which would have allowed me to experience different ways of thinking and see different types of people. But honestly, I don’t see how TV is going to help you get used to accepting new ideas in the right way; most of the things you see on it are unconsciously taken in without even being evaluated first. Underexposure to the world that television opens up didn’t slow my progress in any way.
The downside of not having something is that if you’re not around it, you don’t get used to it. It’s like the way you get allergies from not being exposed to things when you’re young…if you never were near cats or dogs for the first few years of your life, you would tend to sneeze when they showed up later. Now the thing I was always around the least was TV. Throughout my life I began to notice something: when I was in the same room with an active television, I was unable to tear my eyes away from it. My friends helped me realize this. Mostly they helped by shouting, “Dave! Dave!” and trying to get my attention. Somewhere in my high school career I realized: the boob tube has a hypnotic effect on me! Recent experience has confirmed this finding over and over again.
Vices are bad, but if that’s the worst one I ever have I’ll be doing fine.
So on those rainy days when you couldn’t resort to the outdoors, climbing trees, pretending rocks were houses, breathing fresh air, and using your imagination, you must have had a pretty lame time, Dave. Wrong. Haven’t you ever heard of Ninja Turtles? The action figures, not the series. Judging by my tendency to sit in front of the set when I’m over at a friend’s house, I’m really glad I didn’t have anything to watch on those rainy days. Whenever I got tired of everything else in the house I would read. It eventually got to the point where I would sit around on my bed with a sci-fi novel, take it to the table and read while eating, sit there at the table and read, stay up late and read…it was great practice, though sometimes detrimental to my sleep schedule.
Now everyone has that urge to go along with the crowd every now and then…not to mention that there were times when my television-induced hypnosis fueled a desire to have one of the things in my home. That’s why I was so glad when my sister brought one in and hid it in her closet. It didn’t have a cable hookup, but we could watch movies…for about a month, then it was returned to Wal-Mart or something. Looking back now I’m relieved…I might not have been such an avid reader if I had been able get a fix of my addiction every time my sister left her room.
It wasn’t until I graduated that I made the connection. Over the period of a few thinking sessions I dredged up some old academic memories. The fact that I was always reading at a higher level than the rest of my kindergarten class…the spelling bees that I won…my high school career in general…what a conceited reflection! But there was no denying it, I told myself, something made a difference. Yeah, good household and all, that helped. Self-motivation, well, that kind of went away with the senioritis.
Oh, but remember, my self told me. You didn’t have a TV for those thirteen years of schooling. The lack of distracting entertainment drove you to reading, which expanded your vocabulary and grasp of the English language, and to studying and homework, which helped you rise in the ranks of your peers.
Okay, no way it was that simple. The conclusion didn’t strike me like it does the main character in a drama, but once I looked back at my senior awards night I did see a parallel. Being called up to the stage several times…the sound of my friends applauding for me and encouraging me to get up there and do something stupid…that was my reward for studying and being self-motivated! Yeah, whatever. Little did the audience know, nor did I recall, that I might not have concentrated on schoolwork at all if Dad had been less firm in his beliefs. It’s true, I actually did come to the following conclusion later, though not in such complete thoughts:
Oh! I did well because I didn’t have one of those, uh, yeah, things. The box with the moving picture. Not to mention that there just wasn’t much else to do around home in the evenings…
It does make sense. I’m not the type of person who studies well with background noise. Perhaps I shaped my environment to allow for my concentration. Maybe my environment shaped me and got me so used to silence that I couldn’t concentrate otherwise. Either way I know how I turned out.
So I’m not condemning or promoting the ownership or lack of a television in one’s household, though sometimes I wonder if the machine has too much control over us. Walking out of the auditorium after the awards program, I saw my concerns illustrated by the faculty member sitting next to the door and calling:
“Awards Night videos! Reserve ‘em now!”