Searching for Signal...Please Stand By

                          Searching for Signal…Please Stand By

                              A Short Story by Frank Sperry

                I heard my Grandfather say, more than once, that satellite television was the window he looked through to pay attention to what was happening in the world. He often watched what was called World Wide News and another channel, which, because I was never a good speller, I thought, was called Seespan.
         At that time I was more into Nickleodeon myself. I was just a normal kid with curly brown hair. My Grandfather said I reminded him of Tom Jones. I told him I didn’t know who that was. He said that was because I had never been to Las Vegas. That was true. I was only seven years old and had lived in Philadelphia all my life.
         I told my Grandfather he reminded me of Billy Graham. His hair was pure white and thick and he never tried to keep it trimmed neat above his ears or on the back of his neck.
         There we were, Tom Jones and Billy Graham. Not exactly what my Grandmother would call two peas in the same pod, whatever that meant, I’ll never know.
         The World Wide News that he often watched always seemed to have an ounce of good news for every pound of bad news. Like when they showed pictures of real skinny black kids in Africa who always had a bunch of flies near their eyes and the rest of their face. When I looked over at my Grandfather I could tell that the World Wide News seemed to make him sad more times than it made him happy.
         At times like that we were both glad to hear a heavy rain beating on the roof, because that always meant the picture would go dark and all you saw were the words at the bottom of the screen that said “Searching for Signal…Please Stand By.”
         I thought it was strange that there was no television where the black kids in Africa lived so they could look back at us from the other side of the world at the same time. That meant that no matter how hard it might rain, they would never have to search for any signals. When the rain died down on our roof, and the black faces came back on the television screen, their jaws seemed to be pushed in as if somebody’s hand had squeezed their face. Their eyes were white and bright and appeared to be searching for things other than signals.
         Satellite television before I went to school was a happier time for me. I went from Barney to the Wiggles to some crazy kids with blue and orange hair, who called themselves the DoodleBops. Like I said, I was normal in those days. By the time I reached Ninth grade I was no longer normal. I was more like my Grandfather, without the thick white hair.
         I spent more time reading books than I ever spent watching television. And when I did watch television, I found myself watching the BBC and World Wide News. I would have stayed a normal kid if it hadn’t been for my Grandfather. He wanted me to forget about the DoodleBops and pay attention to what was happening in the world.