Snapped cable

Do you own a cell phone? If you are breathing, I am sure you answered, “Yes. “ Today’s obsession with cell phones is the latest bump on the long, never ending, road of technology.

Back when I was growing up--Television was our drug of choice. It was the center of our universe. When I got home from grade school (and on into Junior High) my normal routine was to come home, plant my ass in the sofa, and hunker down until the news hour. I would be staring at a medium sized T.V. inside a Volkswagen sized wooden cabinet. I’d start with reruns of Gilligan’s Island, and then move ont o Get Smart, Petticoat Junction, and Please don’t eat the Daisies. My mom might come in around during Batman (circa: nutty Adam West) with some sustenance. I’d eat it right there. There would come a point, somewhere between Hawaii 5 O and Mannix, where, I might have had to turn my upper body slightly clockwise to turn on the light. That was when the day faded into night. I might feel like giving my numbed brain a work-out and switch to ZooM, for a few minutes. Then it was right back to the excitement of Medical Center with hunky Chad Everett. Ooolala.

Then, in the seventies, our world changed. We were no longer hostage to the three network channels + educational UHF. There were new horizons. Cable, let us into a portal to commercial free pleasures, we had only dared dream about. And, with the recent development of VHS, we could now record and watch them again and again. What a dream/nightmare.
Yes, there were only a handful of channels--HBO, Cinema and Nickelodeon, (which back then consisted of children’s variety shows) but, it was something new and exciting. How could we have foretold of the future of cable: Flavor of Love, Taxi Cab confessions, Beavis and Butthead? Did we have crystal ball to warn us of these atrocities? Did we know that there would someday be 100+ channels of nothing to watch, save a few? No, we had faith. We trusted that technology would take us to a better place. We rode shotgun all the way down that road and got let off here-- in Cable wasteland--which, by way is not commercial free at all, except for Turner Classic movies.

Television was king. Cellphones? We didn't need no stinkging cell phones. Now, we can't go to the bathroom without one attatched somewhere to our bodies. We are more obsessed with them , than any other technology to have dome down the pike. It used to be that when I was in the grocery store, I would step back a bit from a guy talking to himself. Now, I just assume he has a Blue tooth strapped to his ear. Technology has kind of helped me out there though. It has done for me what Cable T.v. never could. I don’t have a Blue Tooth-- but, tend to talk to myself when shopping. Thanks to technology people rarely take notice anymore.