Saturday, May 31, 2014

Saturday Morning Television

Heather watching tv in foster home. Probably around 6 years old.



As you can tell from looking closely at the photo above, the foster home my brother and I lived in wasn't a place of plenty. The tv in the photo was the family television. All of us kids, foster and biological, jockeyed for position in front of it, with the weaker kids on the edges giving up and wandering off.  If you weren't right in front of it, there was wasn't much to see.
 
My brother Ezra adored television and would camp out in front of the set all day. There were no chairs or sofas in front of the tv to sit on. The screen was too small  and grainy to sit very far away and still make out shapes. TV in the early 1970's required a level of patience and skill that I don't think people have anymore. I am surprised the photo doesn't show the essential rabbit ear antenna that protruded out of the back of the tv set. The antenna must have broken off by the time this photo was taken.
 
 Ezra, being by far the most advanced tv watcher in the foster home, was the designated channel man. When a show ended, he was the person who jumped up and changed channels, then fiddled with the extended tin foil wrapped rabbit ears to bring in the picture as clearly as possible. For a child who barely functioned in school and didn't master tying his shoes until well after 4th grade, he had a gift for getting good tv reception. That family job doesn't exist anymore, replaced by remote controls and cable tv that doesn't require antenna.
 
When we were adopted, the upgrade in television was a shock. The Spencer's had a color tv more than three times the size of  the foster home's black and white model. Ezra was no longer in charge of the tv. In fact, we weren't allowed to touch the television. The adults controlled when it was on and what was watched. That was a hard transition for Ezra. He tried to prove his worth by adjusting their antenna, but all that did was make our new adoptive parents angry. They had a fancy antenna mounted on the roof that did the majority of the work involved in getting a clear picture. The days of fashioning intricate aluminum foil extensions to the tv antenna were over, along with all freedom to watch hours of educational children's programing and cartoons. Erza was a boy forced into early retirement against his will.
 
It was heartbreaking to see him stare longingly at the blank tv screen, knowing that if he dared to turn it on, he would get a whipping. He quickly learned tv wasn't worth the pain.
 
The thing my brother and I mourned the most after we were adopted was Saturday morning cartoons. In the foster home Ezra got up early and started watching tv at 5am, when the daily programing began with a picture of the American flag waving and the playing of God Bless America. After the patriotic ritual, there was guaranteed at least 5 hours of cartoons before American Bandstand and wild animal nature shows began. That stopped the day we arrived at the our new adoptive home. They didn't believe in Saturday morning cartoons. Cartoons were garbage. Silly, time-wasting shows designed to rot children's brains. There were inside and outside chores to do and no Tom and Jerry cartoon was going to prevent us from working.
 
The only solace I have about being almost completely cut off from the tv at age 7, is that being adopted drove me and my brother into books. I don't think either of us would have developed our love of reading as deeply as we did if we still had unlimited access to tv. Instead, I predict I would have become the female version of Rodger Ebert. I would be a tv critic who could site every episode of Gilligan's Island ad nauseum. I would probably author books about television and be called upon to give lectures about it's influence on American culture. I would be quoted regularly on news shows and my work would appear in graduate students dissertations.
 
Since none of that happened, I can only surmise my current life occupation is good enough for the universe's happiness. Besides, anyone who knows me well, knows that if I were a world famous tv critic, my ego would totally take over and I would be an insufferable person to have around. I am mature enough to see the wisdom in how things turned out.
 
I love books and they love me. Tv is cool, too.




 
 


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