by James Wallace Harris, Monday, December 28, 2020
I began reading War and Peace (1869) by Leo Tolstoy back in April after watching and reviewing a recent 6-part BBC miniseries (2016) based on the book. I finished about forty percent of the novel and then stopped reading it in early summer. Then a couple weeks ago I decided I needed to finish it before the year was out. Every year I read one literary classic, and I had promised myself that War and Peace was going to be my 2020 read. War and Peace is currently #7 on The Greatest Books list. It did make an excellent companion to 2020, and illuminated the present with the past.
As I mentioned in my earlier review, War and Peace reminds me of Jane Austen because it’s set from 1805-1812 (plus epilogue 1813-1820), which was around the time Jane Austen was writing her famous novels. War and Peace has always been intimidating for his size – 55 hours and 30 minutes on audio, and 1,300+ pages in teeny tiny print. That’s almost like listening/reading all six of Jane Austen’s novels together. The plot and characterizations of War and Peace is about as complicated as reading all the Austen novels by round robin her novels chapter by chater.
That wouldn’t bother some readers, however, War and Peace mixes in countless pages of Tolstoy pontificating about war, power, military command, freedom, history, free will, leadership, etc., and I’m afraid that could turn them off. Thus it makes for a hard novel to recommend emphatically.
War and Peace wasn’t hard to read. Many people have asked me about that. Yes, the Russian names are problematic, but I think it helped that I watched the BBC series first, and watched the Russian language Mosfilm version that was released as four films over two years (1966-1967) while I was reading the book. Those four films of War and Peace are currently available on HBO Max.
My friends also ask me if War and Peace is worth all the trouble to read. When I’ve mentioned to folks that I was reading it, many reacted like I was doing something yucky. It’s actually a wonderful novel, quite philosophical, but mainly about romances within large aristocratic families during the Napoleonic Wars. If you’re a fan of Downton Abbey or Jane Austen, just imagine that kind of story on a much bigger scale with two epic battles, and the downfall of an emperor thrown in. I enjoyed the war parts, but I’m not sure if most readers will.
Again, I’m reminded of Jane Austen. Much of the book is about life and love among the aristocratic which is very similar to Austen. However, in Austen, the men go off to the Napoleonic wars but we’re never told of their experiences. In Tolstoy we are, and it’s important. The men are shaped by their experiences in battle, and two of them have intense spiritual conversions. War and Peace gives us the men’s view of the age, whereas Austen gave us the women’s.
I’ve never really understood Napoleon before. While reading this novel I went and read the entry at Wikipedia about Napoleon, which was very informative. But I actually believe Tolstoy gives a much better picture of this historical figure, even though Tolstoy obviously wanted to write his novel to give a revisionist assessment of Napoleon. I still don’t know enough history to know if Tolstoy is accurate or not, or even if he’s doing hatchet job on the man.
I have to admit that I wished that Tolstoy had published his soapboxing as a separate nonfiction supplement to his novel. It’s quite fascinating to hear Tolstoy’s 1860s knowledge of the sciences, including the new ideas about evolution, applied to events and people. Tolstoy is impressive in his insights, even by 21st century standards. I even used some of them to see Donald Trump in a new light. By the way, I was completely surprised by how important the French language was to Russian aristocrats at the time. I’ve always imagined Russia being very isolated from the rest of Europe.
On the other hand, I was always anxious to get back to the story, and I always wanted to know more about the characters, of which there were too many to chronicle here. Pierre was my favorite, but then he is much like Levin from Anna Karenina, my favorite character in that novel. In both cases, I wondered if those characters were stand ins for Tolstoy himself?
Still, do I recommend this monster of a novel? I am very glad I read War and Peace, and I found it very compelling, but it requires a tremendous commitment. I’m not sure I will ever try to reread it, but I think I will dip into every now and then. Some scenes and chapters are exquisite.
I can recommend reading War and Peace to anyone who loves 19th literature, to anyone who dreams of becoming a writer, or to anyone to enjoys finding philosophy entwined with fiction.
By the way, it’s quite cheap to try War and Peace since it’s in the public domain. Get a free Kindle copy. If you get hooked keep reading. I enjoyed reading it and listening to it on audio. My Kindle edition let me switch back and forth instantly.
by James Wallace Harris, Thursday, November 26, 2020
Even though I often bitch and moan about my memory problems, I don’t feel they’re a sign of early dementia. Humans just have poor memory management compared to computers. If Homo sapiens sapiens ever have a spinoff species I wonder if it will have better memory management? Science fiction writers often imagine Homo superior with superhero superpowers but I tend to believe whatever traits that sets our descendents apart from us will be rather mundane. I hope improved memory is one, but it will probably be the adaption to hotter weather and resistance to toxic pollutants.
Today I felt the need for the specific kind of memory if I was Jim Harris 2.0. I belong to a small group of people who discuss science fiction stories by email. This week we’re discussing “Utopian” by Mack Reynolds, which came out in 1970 about the problems people would face in the year 2000. I read two or three short stories by Mack Reynolds this summer and I wanted to reference them in my comments about “Utopian.”
However, I couldn’t recall anything about those stories – at first. Slowly, as I strained my constipated mind, I shat out a few rabbit turds of recollections, that eventually allowed a few larger memories to flow out. The results looked unrecognizable to what I had consumed. It’s a shame. We have rich experiences and all we retain are little piles of memory shit.
What would it be like if everything I read stored perfectly in my mind and I could recall it whole later? Yeah, I would be a computer then, wouldn’t I? But I’m not, so what’s the best work around?
I’m currently reading a novel, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig that’s about a young woman, Nora Seed, who commits suicide at 35. On the road to oblivion she is offered the opportunity to live a different versions of her life, ones based on paths she had not taken when younger. On one path she became an Olympic swimmer, but Nora realized once she was in that successful life just how much she had to give up to become an elite athlete. It required such a single-minded focus that she had to drop everything else she loved.
If I wanted a mind capable of remembering and writing about the work of Mack Reynolds in the kind of depth that I’m fantasizing about, I’d have to have ignored a whole array of other writers and stories I’ve been enjoying. The reason why I’m not great at anything is because I’m half-ass at everything else. I’m not finished with The Midnight Library, but one of the lessons I’m wondering Nora learns is the virtue of being a dilettante at many things.
I’ve tried diaries, journals, blogs, spreadsheets, databases, text editors, note taking software, 3×5 cards, clipping files, mind mapping tools, and so on trying to organize my thoughts and memories. Nothing works. I’m always surfing on a foamy wave of chaotic fragments of memories that I wished were whole. My mind craves the autistic trait of compulsive organizing but I can’t put everything in visually appealing stacks.
Each day I get up thinking of a new project to pursue. Whatever memories I can dredge together and hold in my mind for the course of the day become my entire set of tinker toys to build that project. Once I go to sleep at night, everything gets reset. I feel like Leonard Shelby in the 2000 film Memento waking up and starting over. I can carry a project over to another day, but I must rethink everything about it the next day. Often that takes me in a completely different direction. This explains why on a number of occasions when researching on Google I found articles I had written on the very topic I was thinking about writing that day, but had forgotten I had written. That really produces an eerie feeling.
What I keep searching for is a external tool or a mental discipline that would allow me to build a larger project by not having to restart everything the next morning. I marvel at people who can create large complex creative works over weeks and months. How do they keep everything in their head day after day? I have to assume their minds have laser focus ignoring endless distractions. I’m always seduced by distractions. I love distractions. I can’t resist squirrels and shiny objects.
Even knowing that distractions are keeping from doing what I really want, I can’t ignore their siren calls. There seems to be two kinds of people in this world. Those that get things done, and those that don’t. And it doesn’t appear that memory recall is the key difference between the two types. I’m guessing it’s more about limiting the amount of items the head juggles that’s more important. That managing a smaller set of data is the key to focusing. Which makes me wonder if Walter Isaacson had to forget all about Steve Jobs to write about Leonardo di Vinci?
If I could only think about one project until it’s finished. Maybe that’s the key to managing memory. I sit here thinking about all the interests my mind would have to ignore in one day, and that makes me feel like Wile E. Coyote trying to walk on air high above the canyon below.
It’s been over fifty years since my father, George Delaney Harris, died on May 3, 1970. He was just 49. I was 18. To be honest, I don’t remember my father very well. Partly because he died when I was young, but also because he wasn’t around much, nor was he much of a talker. I can remember damn few conversations I had with my dad. For most of my life I’ve been trying to puzzle out who he was and what he liked from a few clues and a lot of deduction. My mother never talked about him much after he died. My sister Becky and I have traded some memories over the years.
I wrote about my mother on her would-be 100th birthday four years ago. Now it’s my dad’s turn. I am not a religious man, so I don’t expect to see my folks again in an afterlife. All I have are fading memories. My parents exist as long as Becky and I remember them. How many years will that be, probably not many. My memories of my father have lived longer than he did. My mother was a religious woman, and she hoped to see her folks after she died. But mom wasn’t anxious to see dad again. I remember before she died, I kidded her that she’d soon be in heaven reunited with daddy for all of eternity. I think that pissed her off. Their last years together were not happy ones.
The photo at the top of the page is my father, mother, and me. It is the last good photo I have of my father, probably taken in 1952. It’s rather telling that I have no photo of my dad with his wife and children. I have several from when he was growing up, but only one more photo taken before he died. It was Thanksgiving, 1968. That shot was an accident, taken before rewinding the film. I can barely, make him out. That’s dad at the head of the table with a shiny spot on his bald head. He was actually sitting by my mom. I was talking the photo. All the other family photos he took, which wasn’t many, but explains why he wasn’t in any of them. Most of my memories of my father are like this photo, blurry, out of focus, and hard to make out any details. I believe only my cousin Alana from this photo, is still alive. Becky wasn’t in this picture.
The oldest memory I have of my father is probably from around 1955, when I was 3 or 4. He was playing me, chasing me around the yard and letting me chase him. We tried playing with my plastic cowboys and indians together. I was wanting him to pretend the horses were galloping, and he would just slide them quietly along the floor. I remember being frustrated that I couldn’t communicate with him that he should make galloping noises like I heard in the cartoons. To be fair, I also remember having problems communicating with my mother too at this time. I guess my father died before I learned how to communicate well.
My next memory was at our house on 68th Court in Miami, probably 1955 or 1956. I was four, and he was teaching me to ride my little bike after removing the training wheels. I got the knack of it immediately and he went back in the house. I road up and down the driveway by myself. I have a few other vague memories of my dad from this period. I seldom remember him being home, but sometimes he would take me and my sister riding in the car, a 1955 Pontiac, to the 7-11 to get a coke. (Remember when they came in small bottles?) Becky and I would stand in the front seat and sometimes we were thrown against the dash. This was when I first discovered music, on that car radio. My father didn’t like me changing the station, but I loved pushing the buttons looking for music.
I can’t even remember him at the next house, where I started first grade at age 5 at Flagami Elementary. Or the following house. I can remember my mother being there. I can even remember my grandmother visiting and staying several weeks. And I remember Becky. I just don’t remember dad being there. Maybe he was stationed elsewhere.
One possible reason why my father is missing from my memories is in the evenings Becky and I always sat in front of the TV on the floor, and my parents sat on the furniture behind us. I certainly have more memories of watching television than of them.
I have several memories of dad from the 1958, when I was six. We had moved to South Carolina, and lived in a big old house out in the country. My mother had bought two dozen chicks to raise chickens, and two ducklings. Becky and I loved them. My father made us swings on tree limbs that were very high, which meant we could swing very high. Stray dogs which I called wolves kept trying to eat the chicks. My dad had a small .22 rifle his father had given him, and he used to try to shoot the dogs. I was always disappointed he missed. I remember he promised me a pig for taking out the garbage. I never got it.
Two of my best memories of my dad come from this period. The Air Force was my father’s real family and religion. And they taught him not to be prejudiced against black people. One day he tried to teach Becky and I that. He told us never to mistreat the black kids we played with. I couldn’t comprehend what he was talking about. It turned out our playmates were black and I didn’t know it.
While we lived in South Carolina, my dad took us out to the movies for the first time. It was a theater on base, and we saw Snowfire. But also, one night I got and my dad was up watching the all night movies on TV. He let me stay up with him. I didn’t really know what movies were, or who actors were, but I later learned the movie was High Barbaree with Van Johnson and June Allyson. Watching that film made a lifelong impression on me that I’ve written about many times. I just wish I could remember if me and dad talked about anything.
Our next house was in the Lake Forest subdivision near Hollywood, Florida. It is the first house I remember my dad buying. This was probably Fall 1958, and I turned 7 at the end of the year. I have one memory of him driving me to school and he saw the American flag flying upside down. He told me that was the signal for trouble, so he stopped a cop and told them.
In 1959 my dad got stationed in Canada, and my mother got TB and was sent to stay at Valley Forge, PA. My father’s mother, whom Becky and I called Ma, took care of us for six months. We’d get letters from my father. Then he came and got us and we drove to pick up my mother. At first we lived in Philadelphia, but then moved to Browns Mill, NJ, and then New Egypt, NJ. This was 1959 and 1960. I really have to struggle to remember my dad though. I do remember Christmas 1959 was a good one. I got two electric trains and a leather jacket with three stars on the shoulders. I remember my dad saluting me, and helping me set up the electric trains. The only other memory I can dredge up was when Becky and I went hiking through the woods for miles and miles, and found ourselves in Browns Mills just as my dad was driving home from work. I was in the 3rd grade and my sister the 1st. I think he was shocked we had wandered so far from home, but I don’t remember him yelling at us – my mother would have. Of course, we did that all the time. Times were different then. It was like in Peanuts. We lived in Kidsworld and never saw parents much, or let them know what we were doing.
I don’t know if my parents separate or what. But my mother took me and my sister to live in Marks, MS in 1960 for the rest of the school year and maybe the start of the fourth grade. My mom’s oldest sister lived there. Evidently, things got patched up, because we moved back to Lake Forest in Hollywood, FL. This was my favorite childhood home. This was around the end of 1960 and early 1961. I don’t have any memories of my father from this period. Although I do think he was home in the evenings. I believe he worked at Opa Locka Airport at the time.
Later in 1961 he got transferred to Homestead, AFB. We moved to Maine Avenue, and lived on base from 1961-1963. Becky and I loved it there. My father was around a lot then, and 1962 was our best Christmas ever. I have a vague memory of him watching the first episode of The Beverly Hillbillies with us. Still I can’t remember any conversations with my dad from this period. I just don’t think he was that talkative, although he loved bartending, so I bet he was. My theory was he just didn’t know how to talk to kids.
Towards the end of 1963, just before JFK was killed, we moved back Hollywood, FL. We drove to South Carolina the day after the assassination. My parents rented another house out in the country, which Becky and I loved, but I don’t think my father was home much. My mother had started drinking in a bad way, and they fought a lot. My father had his first heart attack there. He received a medical discharge from the Air Force, after serving 20+ years. From 1964 to 1970 he had another heart attack and a stroke. But he never stopped drinking and smoking. He could smoke several packs of Camels and drink a bottle of Seagram 7 in a day. Dad would get Becky or I to fix his drink. He liked a glass of ice with a dash of Canada Dry soda water, a full jigger of Seagram 7, and then fill the rest of the glass up with Canada Dry ginger ale.
These were the bad years. My dad would recover enough to get a job, and then end up in the hospital again. My parents fought all the time, even separating several times. I think I don’t remember my dad much because I hated seeing him drunk. And often he was just passed out. That made me afraid to bring friends home, so I often stayed away from home.
I do remember three conversations from this period. Around 1967 he went to a trade school to learn computers. One day he came home and taught me about punch cards and what the holes meant. This was significant because in 1971 after he died I enrolled in a trade school to study computers.
Another time we were having breakfast together – which was very odd. My mother and sister were already gone. The Today Show was on and there was a piece about J. R. R. Tolkien. My father said, “They’re talking about Bilbo Baggins.” I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but years later I remember he said it. I’ve always wondered if he had read The Hobbit? It was published in 1937. What else had he read growing up? I wished I had asked him. I wish I had asked him many things. Part of the problem I think was the chain of communication was one way. My parents told Becky and I what to do. They often said don’t talk back, go do your homework, go outside and play, go do your chores. We were rambunctious, and it was a never ending job to quiet us.
The last conversation I remember having with my dad was just weeks before he died. I believe now he knew he was dying, but I didn’t know it then. He was drunk, and told me that he loved Becky and I, and even my mother. That felt odd him saying that. It made me worry about him but I had to leave. So I snuck into my parents’ room and took two loaded revolvers out of his sock drawer and carried them around all evening. (I don’t know how people carry guns, it was very inconvenient.) When I came home he was passed out. A few weeks later he was found dead in a hotel room. He had left us again. Another heart attack, but his autopsy showed a variety of internal problems that would have killed him eventually too.
My childhood was all about the failure to communicate. It’s like watching old movies today. So many plots would have been ruined if they had had cell phones in those days. I believe my dad, mom, Becky, and I could have been happier if we could have communicated. But that’s just a theory I fantasize about now.
I was born on my parents sixth wedding anniversary. They had been informed they couldn’t have children. My uncle Bob told me in my teens that my mother refused to believe she was pregnant for a long time. My mother was 35 and my father 31 when I was born. Another of my many theories, maybe a fantasy, is that my parents were happy before they had me and Becky, because they looked happy in all their photos. My father stayed in the Air Force after the war and my parents got married in 1945. Before we showed up they had been stationed in Washington, DC and Puerto Rico. While growing up they often mentioned how happy they had been in those two places. Here they are in Puerto Rico before I was born. My mother kept a bunch of mementos from Puerto Rico for the rest of her life.
My father was a restless man. He loved being in the Air Force but we moved so much that I believe he put in for transfers. He also worked two and three jobs while in the service. He loved working at the NCO club or a VFW club as a bartender after his regular duties. I assumed because we needed the money, but as I’ve said, I have theories. One theory is working nights kept him from having to come home. I’m not sure my father knew what do with kids. I also assumed he had a full life away from us. At least I hoped he did.
And the reason why I theorize my parents were happier before Becky and I were born is because most of my memories of them were when they were fighting. For mom and dad, good times always seemed in the past. But I’m sure this is a distortion of what actually existed. If I try hard I can remember family get togethers where they might have been happy. And as a kid I sometimes heard them having sex, so maybe they were happy then too. They often retreated to the bedroom and let me and Becky have the living room with the TV. Maybe they had happy times talking together when they could get away from us. At least I hope they did.
My mother was high strung, and I probably bipolar. Becky and I were too much for her. All my early memories of my mom are of being screeched at. She constantly yelled at us to behave, often going into a rage and switching us. Now I don’t blame her. She was raised with the idea that children should be polite and well behaved. We were wild and energetic. She fought an endless battle to control us. We consistently rebelled. We couldn’t be tamed. So she yelled and yelled. Which made my father stay away. Which made her bitch at him. Both my parents became alcoholics, and I never knew who succumbed first.
My father grew up in an alcoholic family. His father and brothers drank. I think he was disappointed I didn’t start drinking as a young teenager. He hated that Becky and I preferred marijuana instead of booze. Of course, this was the sixties and we were part of the generation gap. My dad was always a steady drinker and could handle it until he started having heart attacks in 1964. My mother was a quiet drinker, and couldn’t handle it. She’d lose her shit. I think she used booze as an antidepressant not knowing it increased her unhappiness. A vicious cycle. But as a kid I didn’t understand any of this. All I knew was my parents often got into big fights. I can remember back then always wondering: Was my dad a drunk because my mother was a bitch, or was my mother a bitch because my dad was a drunk.
However, this is enough of remembering their shortcomings. I don’t blame my parents for anything. They tried as hard as they could. I just don’t think they were cut out to be parents, and I wasn’t much of a son. I was great at surviving them, but it required being selfish and self-centered, and I got good at that.
I’ve always wanted to imagine what my dad was like as a person. I’ve always wondered what it would have been like if he had lived and we had finally gotten to talk. I have very little to go on. His favorite TV shows where The Fugitive and Bonanza. He liked Mickey Spillane books and adventure magazines for men like Argosy. He hated rock music. Obviously, he loved to drink. He had a whole world of drinking buddies, and maybe women. He liked fishing, and sometimes took our family fishing out on a rented boat, or me and my male cousins. He talked about how much fishing he’d do when he retired, but after he was forced to retire he did damn little fishing.
I remember my dad taking me to several significant events in my life. But we didn’t go alone together, he would take me and my friends, and he didn’t talk. Or I don’t remember him talking. He took Connell, George, and I to see the liftoff of Apollo 8. That’s a fantastic memory. George kidded me later about how much my dad drank during the trip. He also took the three of us to see 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes. Both were road shows where I had to buy tickets ahead of time. He took me and my cousins camping in the Keys. Bobby, Timmy, and I slept on the beach on a blanket, and he stayed in the car drinking. One of the high points of my life was waking up in the middle of the night to see the Milky Way floating overhead. A majestic memory. My dad was there, but not part of the experience.
I do have memories of him talking about his parents and grandparents. Dad liked the old days, and didn’t like the Sixties. He was born in Nebraska in 1920 but moved to Miami around 1924 I believe. He sometimes talked about the big hurricane of 1926. He once told me a story about how Nebraskan farmers killed jack rabbits. But he was too little to remember that, and I sometimes wonder if he got it in a newsreel. After he died I saw an old newsreel about Nebraskan farmers killing jack rabbits, and it was just like his story.
Going through what few things he left after dying I found a couple newspaper clippings, letters, and photos. I still have them. There’s just not much evidence. I really wanted to know what he dreamed about becoming when he grew up. Of course, his teen years were the depression, so it was probably a job. One newspaper clipping told about how he and some classmates interned at the Miami Herald and learned about composing ads. In high school he delivered telegrams for Western Union on a bicycle, but I only know that because of a photograph. I wish I had Henry Louis Gates to help me decipher my past.
I was a disappointment to my father. He wanted me to go to college, take ROTC and become an officer in the Air Force. Of course, my high school years, 1966-1969 was during the Vietnam War. I had long hair and was against the war. A couple times he called me a long hair commie pinko. I wasn’t, but he couldn’t understand. I was too immature to try to explain things to him, and evidently he wasn’t mature enough to deal with a son who didn’t fit his expectations.
The long hair really bothered him. I think he even worried I was gay. I remember when I was 16 he was so overjoyed that I wanted to borrow the car to go on a date that he lent me his car and gave me his drinking money. Another time he tried to show me a Playboy – now that was embarrassing. I didn’t want to tell him about my stash of girlie mags and didn’t want to think about what he did with his.
I do have a memory of a conversation my mother and father had in bed one night when they thought Becky and I were asleep. They were worried we were doing drugs. We were. They considered calling the cops on us. But they finally agreed that as long as we weren’t doing heroin they wouldn’t turn us in. I was proud of them for that. They were no angels as teenagers. My mother had run off and married a bootlegger (her first husband). I’m sure my dad drank as a teen. Oh, we knew kids doing heroin, but Becky and I didn’t. The closest I ever came was smoking opium with some Navy guys coming back from Morocco – but that was after he died. I remember the first time I got falling down drunk all I could think about was how could my parents stand years of drinking. I considered alcohol an inferior drug.
I did drugs for a few years when I was young, but eventually I realized I had an addictive personality like my father and quit. The lessons of seeing him saved me I guess. He saved me one more time for sure. When it was time to be drafted I was informed I was exempt for being the sole surviving son of a veteran.
Still, I wonder what he dreamed. What did he hope to get out of life? There were many parallels between my father and Jack Kerouac. Both were born around the same time and died around the same time. Alcoholism killed both of them. After my dad died I read a lot of books by Kerouac and about him. Because Kerouac wrote about the times my father lived through I imagined Kerouac thought and did things my father had done too. I saw them as tragic brothers. Both were restless men who compulsively traveled, roaming the United States and never finding what they needed. My father once told me he had been to all 48 states (this being before Alaska and Hawaii joined the union). I figured dad had done some hitchhiking. I did a little myself.
My dad’s father was on the right, one of four boys, and his grandparents were out front. My dad was one of three brothers. My mom was one of five sisters.
My dad as a baby
My dad with a friend in June of 1923. Probably still Nebraska.
My dad on right and his first brother Jack in 1929, now in Miami for sure.
Jack and my dad visiting their grandfather in Nebraska in 1929.
Dad in 1936. Doesn’t he look like someone in a Kerouac novel?
Dad as telegraph delivery boy also from 1936.
Graduating high school in 1938 and then a year later in 1939.
Some photos during the war. He was a drill sergeant.
Last year, I put together this list of the most iconic poems in the English language; it’s high time to do the same for short stories. But before we go any further, you may be asking: What does “iconic” mean in this context? Can a short story really be iconic in the way of a poem, or a painting, or Elvis?
Well, who knows, but for our purposes, “iconic” means that the story has somehow wormed its way into the general cultural consciousness—a list of the best short stories in the English language would look quite different than the one below.
I was able to look up her 43 titles on the internet and found most of them available to read online. I assume that’s because those stories are taught in schools and colleges and teachers have put them online as pdf files so their students can read them for an assignment. I doubt that’s legal, but it’s convenient for me.
Are these stories iconic because a captive audience has been made to study them? Does forced cultural literary constitute a kind of fandom? I’m sure Emily Temple and I are the kind of book nerds that love these stories, but just how many other people do?
I went to Amazon looking for anthologies that might contain these stories. I assumed if they were iconic then they’d be readily available, but they weren’t. The only anthology I found that had more than a couple of these stories is an old one I already owned. It had 7 of the 43, which is pretty good. That volume, The Art of the Short Story edited by Dana Gioia and R. S. Gwynn is probably a textbook, but it seems to be out-of-print. I found a few other textbooks that had some of the 43 stories, but at most three. However, the same authors are anthologized over and over again, so there seems to be disagreement as to what their best stories might be.
This still leaves me thinking Emily Temple’s 43 iconic stories aren’t that iconic outside of hardcore bookworms. These stories definitely aren’t iconic like Classic Rock albums or the old TV shows that rerun on MeTV or TVLand which have tens of millions of fans across generations.
I added the 43 stories to a Google Sheet and put in links to where I found the stories online. I plan to read them all. I also plan to add other lists of “iconic” short stories to this spreadsheet, and read them too.
Last night I read “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. It was a bit of horror fluff that didn’t have much to say philosophically, nor did it reveal anything about life in 1843 America. I can’t believe we make children read it. There’s got to be better Poe to force onto younsters.
On the other hand, rereading “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omeleas” by Ursula K. Le Guin is intensely philosophical and I imagine an excellent story to trick teens into thinking about deep concepts.
How many people still read short stories after they leave school? Probably damn few. That isn’t to say that Edgar Allan Poe or Eudora Welty don’t have their fans, but are their followers a large enough crowd to swing over the needle of a pop culture meter when mentioned on Jeopardy? Well, some Jeopardy contestants would be the kind of folks to read short stories.
More and more, I’m getting into short stories. I’m reading over three hunded of them a year. But it also feels like I’m withdrawing from reality. My friends want to talk about novels, or movies, or TV shows — and I can’t. And they aren’t interested in discussing short stories.
I imagine kids when assigned to read short stories today feel about the same way as we did when forced to do quardratic equations back in our school days. No, I don’t think the word iconic applies to Emily Temple’s list of old short stories. But what’s the right word?
I wonder if that word is in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows? I wish I knew Greek and Latin so I could make up a word for loving art forms going extinct. Or a word for cherishing fadding pop culture successes of the past. Anachronostalgia?
It has been said that writers write to become immortal, but that immortality only lasts as long as people continue to read what they wrote. What’s a word for keeping old works of art alive? It’s kind of a good deed, don’t you think? Of course, not as good as helping a real person in need, but it’s still a kindly thing to do.
This post is going to be way longer than I ever imagined. My first title was “Do You Use Old TV Shows as Anchors for Old Memories?” I wanted to write about using memories of watching television as a mnemonic device to trigger connecting memories of real life. Well, this worked too well – it opened a floodgate of images from the past. That in turn, made me ask myself the following questions:
Can I remember what it felt like to be me at different ages?
Why were certain shows my favorites each year?
Can I remember when, where, and who I watched those shows with?
Can I remember the house, room, and TV set?
What else was going on in my life?
What was my psychological state-of-mind at the time?
Would life be better without TV?
Before I started this project, I had assumptions about my past that on reflection I no longer believe are true. Before this essay, I would have told people that when I grew up, I watched television every night for all three hours of prime time. I remember loving the Fall Preview issue of TV Guide so much that I studied it like a textbook before a test. That I gave all the new shows at least one try. That I watched so much TV that I knew what every show was about even if I wasn’t a fan. That as a kid I was a walking TV Guide.
Then I watched a series of YouTube videos about the new shows that premiered every year from 1957-1968. Those assumptions are a delusion. I was astounded by the number of shows that were complete blanks in my memory. I was also amazed by the memories triggered by clips of shows I had seen. That tidal wave of memories brought back details that when I pieced together made me realize I hadn’t watched nearly as much television as I believed. My past was far fuller with other interests and loves. What had happened, I realized, I was remembering television shows, books, movies, and music better than my actual life. Why is that?
I have a tremendous nostalgia for the television I watched growing up, but that nostalgia distorted my sense of who I was. It’s kind of disturbing how much we depend on TV to fill up our evenings, and for some people, their days too. Was it worth it? Is it worth it? Television is a lot of make-believe for children, make-believe that influenced our psyches. Yet, haven’t we as adults logged even more hours in TV Fantasyland? Even today, television is seemingly important to me and my friends, and often television watching is the subject of our conversations and the shared interest that binds us.
Television and I grew up together in the 1950s. All this navel-gazing on my past showed how television shows were weaved into my formative years, and how recalling specific TV shows help date events in my past. It’s kind of weird when you think about it, that we have such an intimate relationship with an electronic box. They say your life will flash in front of your eyes when you die – if that is true, I will see huge swaths of my life in front of a television (or computer screen).
The result of unearthing all these TV memories is it pulls up related memories too. As long-forgotten memories bubble up into consciousness, some of which I don’t ever recall remembering before and others I haven’t thought about in years, it’s making me reevaluate who I was. Remembering TV shows triggered memories about my past habits, traits, interests, friendships, relationships, and even sexual desires. Other memories allowed me to make logical deductions about dates and places. But I can’t be sure if these are real memories or false memories because some memories also created logical conflicts too.
My family moved a lot when I was growing up because my father was in the Air Force, but I think we moved even more frequently than normal service people. I’ve always had the feeling my father was restless and put in for transfers. Living at different houses and dating specific TV shows gives me a grid to plot my memories. By researching TV seasons online and connecting them with the houses I lived at during those seasons, I was able to anchor past events on a crude timeline. From this, I was able to deduce facts, some of which conflicted with other memories, revealing some of my memories can’t possibly be true.
One of the biggest revelations I made was I stopped watching television in the 1967/68 season. That’s because I got an after-school job where I worked 25-33 hours a week. I didn’t start back watching TV until Susan and I got married in 1978. Thus, I missed the 1967/68 through 1977/78 seasons. Oh, there were a couple shows I tried to watch if I had a moment, but I usually didn’t. It why friends are baffled that I’ve never seen The Brady Bunch or The Waltons. This was starkly revealed when I was watching YouTube videos about the shows from those 1968-1978 years. I drew complete blanks from most of the clips I saw. The only time I can remember watching TV during those years was when I was hanging out with friends, and we were usually getting high and talking over the shows.
My memory of television during my childhood mainly runs from the 1957/58 season to the 1966/67 season. This is my Classic TV Era, and it roughly coincides from when I was from six to sixteen. It sure would have been convenient if my birthday, school grade, and TV season all started on January 1st or September 1st. Luckily, school and Fall TV started around the same time in September, unfortunately, my birthday was three months later. I’m going to give my age that I was for three-fourths of the year. For example, I started first grade at age 5, but I’m going to list it as 6, even though I was 5 for a third of the school year.
Age
Grade
TV Season
Location
6
1st
1957/58
Miami, Hollywood (FL) – 3 houses and 3 schools
7
2nd
1958/59
Miami, Hollywood (FL)
8
3rd
1959/60
Browns Mills, New Egypt (NJ)
9
4th
1960/61
Marks (MS), Hollywood (FL)
10
5th
1961/62
Hollywood (FL), Homestead (FL)
11
6th
1962/63
Homestead (FL)
12
7th
1963/64
Homestead, Hollywood (FL), New Ellenton (SC)
13
8th
1964/65
New Ellenton (SC), Homestead (FL)
14
9th
1965/66
Cutler Ridge (FL)
15
10th
1966/67
Charleston (MS), Coconut Grove (FL)
Before Starting School (11/25/1951-1955)
I can remember living in three places before starting school although I know I lived in at least three others. I have no memories of a TV set or watching TV. I can’t say we didn’t have a TV either. Both my parents loved television. I have vague memories of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie (1947), Howdy Doody (1947), Romper Room (1953), The Mickey Mouse Club (1955), Captain Kangaroo (1955), and other children’s TV shows, but I can’t connect any with a house, which means I can’t date them. And those vague earlier memories are confused by later memories of seeing those shows while flipping channels when I was too old to be watching kiddie shows.
Kindergarten and 1st Grade (TV seasons 1956/57, 1957/58)
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly my earliest memories of television because the house we lived in was the one where I attended Kindergarten and the first of the three first grades schools I attended. Actually, I was 4 and 5 at this house and didn’t turn 6 until after we moved. I can’t say if my earliest TV memories are from when I was 4 or 5, but I’m going to assume 5.
I’ve been trying very hard to imagine what it feels like to be a 5-year-old person. I don’t think its a highly sentient state. I’m not sure if it’s not closer to a smart dog than to an adult person. I had an extremely limited vocabulary and practically no concepts about how the world work. I was full of wants and desires. Frustration would make me cry, excitement would make me laugh and shout. I don’t think I understood TV but was mesmerized by it.
The illusion of our conscious mind is we have always been the same person. That every day we wake up the same being we were the day before. But really, am I the same person I was at 5, 10, or 15 years old? I cannot comprehend being enthralled with Captain Kangaroo, but I probably was back then. At age 5 I possessed only a tiny fraction of the vocabulary, experience, and knowledge that I have now. At what point do we become fully conscious of a fixed identity? It has occurred to me that my memories of watching television reveal clues about who I was psychologically at different ages.
It was during this year I have my earliest memories of watching television, although I have no memories of Sputnik or other news events. I did not know the president was Dwight Eisenhower. Until I started first grade, I did not know the alphabet and couldn’t count. I don’t think I could tell time, or even recite our phone number or address. I was a dumb little guy who liked to play with toy cars and trucks, pretend with plastic army men, cowboys, Indians, horses, and eat my baloney sandwiches. That was about the extent of my personality. I could watch Topper but I don’t think I knew what being a ghost meant.
I remember in my forties going back to the house I lived during this period and standing on the sidewalk in front of that house. I was with my high school friend Connell and told him it felt like I was standing on the Big Bang of my universe.
I can recall quite a few things from that year, but they as just brief flashes. I remember climbing several trees and falling out of one, going to kindergarten on a bus, my first friend who lived down the street named Petey, the day Petey’s father came home from California, and brought toys from Disneyland, including an arrow through the head trick. I remember my sister and I playing with an old wooden box and painting it with a watercolor set.
And I remember watching Topper (1953) and Gunsmoke (1955). In fact, it was while watching Gunsmoke that the idea of death came to me. I realized the actors were pretending to die, but it was implied they would never get up again. That insight was quite profound for my little mind. For all I know, it might be my first abstract concept.
Looking at the schedule for the 1957-58 television season I see several shows I remember from childhood, but I don’t have memories of them from when I was five. Topper wasn’t even on the schedule. It was probably a rerun during the day for kids. I have vague memories of shows that began in earlier seasons like I Love Lucy, Make Room for Daddy, and Ozzie and Harriet.
The TV we watched is pictured at the top of this essay. I believe that photo is from the house I lived in when I was five. Do I look five and my sister three? The clips in these YouTube videos look much worse than how I remember seeing TV. TV images back then were bad, but they were more snowy than blurry. They were black and white, and if you looked close, you could see the scan lines. I assume many of the clips in the YouTube videos below were from kinescopes. TV in the past looked better, but not much better.
From watching this video I recall seeing many of these shows that premiered in the 1957/58 season, but I can’t pin them to a certain house and date. Wow, there were a lot of westerns.
These are the new shows I remember watching. Either by myself, with my sister, or with the whole family. This will be true from now on when I list the shows after the film clip(s).
Have Gun-Will Travel
Maverick
Wagon Train
Zorro
The Real McCoys
Leave it to Beaver
Bachelor Father
Perry Mason
American Bandstand
Now I have lots of memories of these shows, of watching them with my family and watching them for years, but I just don’t have a specific memory of where I lived when I first saw them. But this was a great season to start watching TV! I loved these shows enough to watch them in reruns over the years, and I’ve bought DVD sets of Have Gun-Will Travel, Maverick, and Perry Mason. What’s hilarious is I was bored to death by Perry Mason as a kid, but get a big nostalgic kick out of it now.
2nd Grade (TV season 1958/59)
One of my earliest memories, and one I’ve cherished my whole life, is waking up in the middle of the night when I was six or seven and going out into the living room where my dad was watching a movie. I have damn few memories of spending time with my dad. I’ve always felt it was in the middle of the night, but it could have been just ten o’clock. He was alone and let me stay up with him. The film was High Barbaree with Van Johnson and June Allyson, but I didn’t know that at the time. I’m not sure I even knew what a movie was at this age. But one early scene had a little boy and girl being separated because her family moved away. That I knew about. I had already moved several times and left my little friends.
I remember living in South Carolina when I was very little, but I’ve never been able to date when. Even before my mother died, she couldn’t remember. I have the above memory about High Barbaree, and I believe my dad took us to see a movie called Snowfire that came out in May of 1958. Using the chart below I developed for this project, I’m now going to guess we only lived in South Carolina the first time during the summer of 1958, after the first grade, and that I started the second grade late by a few weeks.
Here’s me about a year later I in Hollywood, Florida. My sister Becky is the redhead, with her friend Patty, and a little girl whose name I’ve forgotten.
My parents bought this house, located in a subdivision called Lake Forest. We lived there for second grade, fourth grade, and a couple months during seventh grade. Some of my best memories of childhood are from this house, and I’m very nostalgic about this era of my life. For decades I would have reoccurring dreams of trying to find my way back to this home.
However, I have very few specific memories of watching television at this house. One of my fondest memories was about how we watched our favorite shows on Saturdays from early morning until noon. Becky and I liked to build a tent over the TV with army blankets and lie on the floor inside the dark tent to watch our cartoons. Florida has a bright sun and the TV was next to the sliding glass door to the back yard. We watched Mighty Mouse, Sky King, My Friend Flicka, and so many other shows. I’ve always assumed we did this every Saturday but I now wonder if it was just a few times.
That’s the thing about these memories. Often recalled memories are about one time or two times, but in my mind, I assumed it was for many times or all times. A TV show back then often ran for 36 episodes in a season. Before writing this if I remembered watching a show I assumed I watched every episode. After spending a lot of time with these memories I now doubt that. There’s a good chance I only saw a handful of episodes, even for my very favorite shows. But then we forget so much, so I can’t be sure.
I also loved playing outside. Becky and I made our first best friends here, Michael Kevin Ralph and Patty Paquette. The neighborhood were full of Baby Boomer kids — it was childhood Nirvana. Another factor, which just occurred to me, was Becky and I had bedtimes. In Florida, prime-time ran from 8 till 11, and I think we had to get to be by 9pm. If I work at it, I can recall more memories of us playing inside and outside of the house rather than watching TV.
I also remember discovering Tarzan and Jungle Jim movies at this house, and old science fiction movies from the 1950s. This was probably my first exposure to science fiction.
Watching this clip reminded me of that I had seen many of these shows, meaning I probably watched a lot more TV, but only a few were family favorites.
The Donna Reed Show (with my Mom and Becky)
The Rifleman
Wanted Dead or Alive
77 Sunset Strip (with Dad)
The Jackie Gleason Show (with parents)
3rd Grade (TV season 1959/60)
While I was in the second grade my mother got TB and was sent to stay in a sanatorium in Valley Forge, PA. My father was stationed in Canada. My father’s mother, whom we called Ma, took care of me at Becky and lived with us at the Lake Forest house. During the summer by dad came home and drove us up north to pick up my mother. We lived in Philadelphia for a while, before school started.
I can’t remember the TV there, but I do remember seeing one TV show that was science-fictional and made with an odd kind of animation. I’ve never been able to find out what it was.
Then we moved to Browns Mills, New Jersey, where I started the third grade, but then to New Egypt, New Jersey in the town, and then out in the country. I have no memory whatsoever of watching TV during the third grade. In Browns Mills, there was a big forest to play in just across the street. And when we lived out and the country we played in the forest, across cattle fields, farms, on hills covered with gopher holes, and in streams with snakes and turtles. I believe we had our first dog there, Mike, named after Michael Kevin Ralph.
I built a soapbox racer out of an army trunk and baby buggy wheels and made it a hardtop with old cabinet doors. And I did this all by myself, other than my mother buying me the old baby buggy to tear apart. So TV just wasn’t that interesting that year. I can’t even remember a TV being in any of the three houses we lived in while we lived in New Jersey. Nor do I remember most of these shows in the clips below. My family started watching some of them like The Untouchables, Laramie, Bonanza when we move to Mississippi or back to Florida, and even then I don’t remember any kid-friendly shows at all. What’s funny, I have practically no memories of the insides of our houses in New Jersey, but I have lots of memory of being outside.
However, here’s what premiered in 1959:
But after seeing the second clip I do remember seeing Denise the Menace, and I thought from the first episode. And I loved Dobie Gillis. So maybe I did watch TV in New Jersey and just don’t remember it. It’s funny how unreliable our memories can be. And of course, who could forget The Twilight Zone? But my first memories of it are from Mississippi, where we moved next. Maybe we didn’t even have a TV in New Jersey.
4th Grade (TV season 1960/61)
We moved to Marks, Mississippi in 1960. My mother’s family is from Mississippi and her oldest sister Belle lived there. I think my father got stationed elsewhere because I don’t remember him being there, maybe in Texas. Years later I found a letter about his training as a mechanic on F-106s. Marks was a very small town, and we had lots of kids to play with. We only lived in Marks part of the summer of 1960, and for the first two six-week periods of school, then we moved back to Hollywood for the rest of the school year.
This was when I first remember having a president, and the presidential race between Kennedy and Nixon. I remember getting in a fight at school because I was for Kennedy and another boy was for Nixon. I doubt either of us knew anything about politics.
I remember watching TV in Marks, specifically The Twilight Zone which I thought was very scary and the very last episode of Howdy Doody.
New shows that I remember watching with my family, but maybe not specifically in this year were:
Route 66
The Andy Griffith Show
My Three Sons
Candid Camera
The Bugs Bunny Show
The Flintstones
Surfside 6
5th Grade (TV season 1961/62)
I began the 5th grade living in Hollywood, Florida but we moved to Homestead Air Force Base in Homestead, Florida. This was one of the longest stretches of living in one place of my childhood. It covered the second part of 5th grade, all of the 6th grade, and the first six-weeks of 7th grade. That was a special time for me in other ways too. I got my first radio there and began to follow Top 40 music. And I became a bookworm while living on Maine Avenue. So TV had some competition. We still played outside all the time it was light, and sometimes in the dark. Becky and I had best friends Alice and Arthur Mitchell that kept us busy.
During the summers Becky and I would stay up late watching the all-night movies. That’s where I learned to love old movies from the 1930s and 1940s. It’s also where I saw High Barbaree again and remembered seeing it before. Becky and I also loved game shows.
Mister Ed
Hazel
Car 54 Where Are You?
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Ben Casey
Kildare
Saturday Night at the Movies
6th Grade (TV season 1962/63)
6th grade was special to me. My teacher Mrs. Saunders would read books to us after lunch, and that greatly influenced my evolution as a bookworm. Christmas 1962 was my favorite Christmas ever, and my family was at its happiest. I can remember us watching more TV together than at any other time. My father was seldom at home when I was growing up. He often worked one or two part-time jobs after his Air Force duties. I never questioned it then, but I assume now that he didn’t really like being a father. Becky and I drove both our parents crazy. Neither were really suited to handle children. My mother would work 2 to 10 at Sears as a telephone operator. So Becky and I often had the run of the house. Because our parents worked so much I don’t have a lot of memories watching TV with them, but some. Usually on the weekends.
Mainly I remember Becky and I playing with our best friends Alice and Arthur. And we had our black and white collie named Tippy, and our cats Blacky and Mitsy.
Both my parents loved television and I believe they had a life watching TV when Becky and I went to bed. Us kids totally hogged the TV set and my father and mother would fight us to see their favorite shows. Sometimes they won and we’d watch the adult shows with them. Often we won, but I’m not sure they always stayed around to watch our shows. In the summertime, our parents would let Becky and I stay up all night watching television and playing board and card games. Later on, I figure out they did this because they could retreat to the bedroom to escape us and we’d sleep late, and that gave my mother time to herself the next day.
Combat (Me and Dad)
McHale’s Navy (Dad’s favorite)
The Beverly Hillbillies (Me and Becky, but sometimes the folks)
The Lucy Show
The Jetsons
The Virginian (Mom’s favorite)
7th Grade (TV season 1963/64)
I lived in three houses in two states and attended three different junior high schools for 7th grade. This year was significant for TV in another way, first for the coverage of John Kennedy’s assassination in November, and the arrival of The Beatles in America in February.
We lived out in the country, in a small subdivision of five houses on a dirt road that had six kids who hung out together. Our best friends were Jerry and Chucky Johnson. It was a great year. We had a thirty-five-mile commute to school. The school bus driver was a beautiful 18-year-old high school girl named Frankie. We were a wild bunch of kids on that bus, often playing games and talking about the TV shows we watched the night before. We spent a lot of time playing outdoors, so I remember watching TV less. And I was slowly becoming a science fiction bookworm. I spent a lot of time reading and listening to AM radio. This was the beginning of the time when my parents started fighting and our family fell apart.
The Outer Limits (me)
The Fugitive (Dad’s favorite)
Novak
My Favorite Martian
Petticoat Junction
The Patty Duke Show
The Farmer’s Daughter
8th Grade (TV season 1964/65)
I started the 8th grade in South Carolina. My dad had a heart attack at 42 and received a medical discharge from the Air Force, retiring with 20+ years of service. We moved back to Miami, in a place called Leisure City and I attended Homestead Jr. High. This was a bad year for my parents. They tried opening a restaurant that failed, they fought and separated a couple of times, and they were both becoming bad alcoholics. I used science fiction and television to escape their battles. This was the year I separated from my family by spending more time alone reading and listening to music. I think this was the year I became who I am. I remember struggling with so many ideas. I became an atheist, and I started watching the news. It’s probably when I became a liberal too, and I really embraced rock music. I became a big fan of The Byrds which led to Bob Dylan.
Shindig!
Hullabaloo
The Addams Family
The Munsters
Bewitched
My Living Doll
Gilligan’s Island
Gomer Pyle-USMC
Daniel Boone
12 O’clock High
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Flipper
9th Grade (TV season 1965/66)
The 9th grade was one of the few school years that I only went to one school for the entire year. We lived in Cutler Ridge, Florida. It was a better year for my parents, until the end when they split up. It was the year my dad bought us a color television set. This was also the year I started going to used bookstores on my own. I had a paper route, babysat, and mowed lawns. I started buying records. I went everywhere on my bike. And we had Chief the dog. Becky was going her own way too.
F-Troop
Hogan’s Heroes
Get Smart
Green Acres
My Mother the Car
I Dream of Jeannie
The Dean Martin Show (Dad’s favorite)
The Wild Wild West
The Big Valley
Lost in Space
I Spy (My favorite)
10th Grade (TV season 1966/67)
At the end of the summer of 1966 my parents split up, and my sister and I moved with my mother to Charleston, Mississippi where I started the 10th grade. I remember watching a lot of TV in Charleston. I also remember the TV set its location in the room. It was the first time we had cable TV. The 1966/67 season was my all-time favorite TV season, mostly because of Star Trek. That summer I had spent time in Key West with my father. He was mostly gone from our motel room, either at work or the motel bar. During the days I’d walk around Key West or sit in the motel watching TV. I kept seeing previews for this show called Star Trek and I couldn’t wait. Strangely, I would see the first episode in Mississippi. I made friends in Charleston, had a paper route, and was even in the Science Club at school. But I don’t remember seeing my mother or sister much. I think it’s because I was watching a lot of television they didn’t like, such as Star Trek, The Time Tunnel, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., Tarzan, and many more. I now wish I hadn’t watched all that TV and had gotten more involved with the local townspeople back then.
In March, my parents decided to get back together, and we moved back to Miami and lived in Coconut Grove, Florida, where I finished the 10th grade. I loved Coconut Grove. I met my lifelong friend Jim Connell there. I attended Coral Gables High School, where the rich kids went to school, but we were poor. It would embarrass me when dad would drive me to school in his beat-up old car, so I started walking miles to school. I’d ride the city bus all over Miami, and loved the freedom of being on my own. I also started taking astronomy classes at the Science Museum with Mr. Sullivan.
I can’t remember the TV set we had at the house on W. Trade Street in Coconut Grove, which implies I didn’t watch it much, or at all. I do remember my sister fighting with my dad to watch The Monkees.
That Girl
The Monkees
Family Affair
Stage 67
Tarzan
Star Trek
The Time Tunnel
The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.
Mission Impossible
11th Grade (1967/68 season but I stopped watching television)
My mother told me when I started the eleventh grade that I had to have a job by the time I turned 16 on November 25th. But I don’t remember even trying to watch TV at the beginning of the Fall season. My parents were fighting, my sister was fighting with my parents, and I just stayed out on the back screened-in porch where I made my bedroom. I did get a job and worked every day after school and on Saturday.
We then moved to South Miami Heights in March 1968, and I had to change schools to Miami-Killian Senior High. It was hard getting back to the Kwik-Chek in the Grove, which was about a thirty-minute drive. My father wasn’t working, and then not living with us, but he let me use his car. All I did was go to school and work. I just don’t remember TV at all.
Even though I loved Star Trek I never watched season two and three. My life changed quite a lot in 1968 and 1969. Besides working, I started dating. That began the era when I began going to rock concerts, live theater, restaurants, movies, and driving around town by myself. I stayed away from home as much as possible. I loved the Coconut Grove Library and the main Miami library downtown. I start junior college in the fall of 1969, the weekend after Woodstock.
In May 1970, my dad died, and things changed again. I moved to Memphis, and my mother and sister decided to too. I developed a whole new life, new friends, and I just don’t remember television being part of it. Oh, I tried to watch Then Came Bronson or Kung Fu when I could, but I can’t even remember the TV sets I watched them on.
When I got married in 1978 I did go back to TV and Susan and I found a lot of shows to watch together. We loved TV and still do. But that’s another story.
But to answer the title question, I think I love TV because it offers an escape from real life, and quite often we’re more entertained by pretend-life. I now watch TV when I’m too tired to do anything else. But growing up, I found a great deal of happiness watching TV. First, because it was delightful and entertaining, and second, when life got stressful, it was a great tranquilizer and anti-depressant. More than that, I loved TV when I could watch it with other people, either my family or friends. I loved to go to school and find friends who had watched the same shows the night before. So TV was a social outlet for me. I watched it with my family. Often I would have friends over to watch TV with me or go to their house to watch TV. Even today I love TV shows that I share with friends.
For most of the 20th century, I didn’t think much about how TV was made. Since the turn of the century, I’ve thought of TV as an art form. Current TV shows I watch are light-years beyond the shows I loved in the 1950s and 1960s in artistic quality and technical production.
However, even though TV has constantly gotten better, and thus more seductive, I wonder why we spend so much time watching. Why do we spend hours on end staring at a screen? Isn’t that odd? Now that I’m old and more inactive, it makes more sense, so why did I waste so much of my youth being so inactive?
Yes, isn’t it weird we get so caught up in flickering colored light on a big rectangle?
