Fandango! I have a television story to tell.
Television bad
Said the man in the pulpit
The man is my dad
In my church it (the television) was called the boob tube, the idiot box, sinful. Instead of teaching self control, it was abstinence, similar to sex, only after you get married, you can have sex, but still no TV – or going to the movies.
As a young teenager, I did go to a friend’s house and watched Tom Jones. We got to watch Captain Kangaroo at my grandma’s house, when we would visit in the summer. We may have gone to a friends house to watch Kennedy’s funeral. But not the space shuttle…. sermons about that too. “If G-d wanted us to go to the moon, he would have put us there. Jesus came to earth, not outer space.” So, there ya go.
When I married my children’s father, he and I went to a drive-in, where no one would see us (1974). We watched Where the Red Fern Grows (my first movie on a huge screen). And then, we moved to Elmira NY, we would watch football games on New Years Day at a friends house whose dad was not a member of the church, so he had a TV, and then I separated from the father of my children, a son of this non-member loaned me his TV. That’s when I watched the Rockford Files which were reruns? (1979).
When I moved to Houston, I was given a very old TV, (1980) and I’ve had one since. So, I’m not savvy when it comes to actors/tresses names. Yet, I think it is really part of my dyslexia. I have a hard time with names of people I know too. I let my children watch TV and go to movies.
Once when my parents were coming to visit (they came about once a year), I was going to hide the TV, but decided to leave it there, and I told the kids that their grandparents did not like TV, so we would keep it turned off while they were there. During that time, my son was six years old and had a falling out with a kid on our block. He came in and grabbed his bat, and was going to go out and smash the kid. Luckily I caught him before he went out the door. And my mom said “too much Popeye?” I replied that I didn’t let them watch Popeye. *sigh*
My dad still does not have a TV. Never has, never will. However, he does have a computer. *sigh* He does enjoy watching videos of nature or architecture. And NOW because of COVID, listens to the sermons via ZOOM.
Most or all of the friends I grew up with in the church now have TVs. Oddly enough, my children do not watch the news or TV shows. They stream videos instead. Oh well.
~RuthScribbles