Posted by Anonymous on 2019/10/27 under Life It started with boredom. My parents banished television from our home when I was We moved. From the small town of my birth to the big city. From “Hicksville” to Books, I read books to fill the hours. I read books until the clocks would shift from their Then God told Mother I should not read more than I enjoy creation. Banished books On a rerun night I was being a bad influence on Perry. Perry had strict parents, but He I left before the commercial break. I gifted the fork to Perry and left him as He gaped at I think that fork left Perry with the opinion that an algebra teacher articulated to me – Stark R.M.
eight years old. Yeah, no, really. For ten years I had no TV in my childhood. A large
chunk of my peer group's shared memories will forever hold them in a flimsy common
bond that I can never share. A lot of s***ty sitcoms and some good "news" reporting is
missing from my history. On the playground, I heard the fragmented recounting of the
humorous and serious doings. Always, I was the outsider; the curiosity; the excluded
during those exchanges. And I yearned for that TV! The parents heard voices. Angelic
choruses. God, yes herm (or sheem), found these two fascinating, so personal chats
occurred. That is what I was lead to believe and I played along since I was powerless to
affect any change. One voice said the TV was Satan's haunt and must go. So, if I recall
correctly, the TV was given to friends. Now I assume those were pagan or heathen
friends. I probably have that wrong, though, cash must have been involved.
cosmopolitan, sophisticated, suburbia. All the neighbors were natives and up to the
minute about the local mores. I spoke "funny". My words were the same, but my dialect
brought smiles, laughter and derision. I was live TV! I made friends with natives and
they taught me the proper way to say words such as flower and bag and aunt. We did
things outside our homes and connected as humans. TV, though, was a large part of their
vocabulary and I could not study that homework. I begged God's servants to relent.
Constantly my pleading fell on deaf ears. Our home would have no Devil box. In hope
of a loophole, I visited friends before their favorite programs were aired and made a
point to wait for them. Less than a handful of attempts were successful. My parents had
phoned the other parents and passed instructions from God. There was to be no TV for
me. Friends' families would politely cast me out at 7 in the evening.
slow, tedious, tick-tock to a purr or hum. In those moments of delusion I would put
down the books and marvel at the passage of time. Warping and flowing, roaring in my
ears. I would slowly leave the house, creeping rather than walking. With baby steps
outside to wonder how I had sped up while others moved at the pace of glaciers. Their
words stretched out to odd lengths. Expressions frozen on their faces as they nearly
seemed motionless. The spell would break after a few or several minutes and I would
return to my reading.
were returned to library shelves and outside mischief beckoned. On the off-season, when
TV offered reruns, friends would join my post-dusk fun. The river. The park. The school.
A neighbors house. I found ways to amuse my monkey self. Destructive ways as I lashed
out at any available target. I jumped fences, found chain-link holes, climbed buildings
and pranked neighbors in their sleep.
had TV. Perry had an angry and abusive father, but He had TV. He doubted my story of
creepy-crawling the neighbors. Across from Perry lived a special family. By vocation the
father made the family special. He taught at the junior high school. He was an authority
figure and Perry dared me to bring him proof that I could creepy-crawl that house. I
slipped over the fence and opened the back door to enter the kitchen. In those days the
windows had a security flaw that allowed you to unlock them from the outside. I took a
piece of flat-ware from the rack by the sink and I watched TV over the family's
shoulders. They sat together on their sofa, content with the content streaming from the
box. I was watching TV! And in that purple-glow moment I was already too far down
the road to delinquency to return to television's warm, dull, bosom of banality.
me from his lawn. We both knew, at that point, I was outside the social order. I did not
know where the path was leading but I wanted excitement in my future. Perry was happy
to return to his TV. We drifted apart as friends, became neighbors nodding over the
fence. I believe that fork left Perry with an uneasy, threatened feeling. I saw pity in his
eyes before that night. He may have doubted the information that I gave regarding my
life and thoughts and abilities but the fork seemed to confirm it all. After that fork
passed to his hands his face wore less pity and more a mask of civil indifference.
years later. He said, "My heart bleeds for you. You are going to jail." I nodded. "You are
going to prison." I nodded. "You are going to Hell!" I smiled. "Don't you care?", He
queried. "I'm tough, I can take it.", I replied. Tears welled in His eyes as he dismissed
me from his desk. Outside his world-view, I smiled through the rest of his class. I
couldn't hear God and didn't care.
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sounds like the story of my life– thanks for showing me i’m not alone!