Look on the roof ... it’s a true miracle
- Mike Dewey: Life Lines
- October 7, 2023
- 472
Let’s follow up on a topic I addressed about seven months ago, one that, even in theory, I knew could be a life-changing decision.
I refer to cutting the cable.
To refresh your memory, the local cable TV company had just jacked up the monthly bill to a figure so outlandish it caused severe economic distress, forcing my wife and me to reevaluate our priorities and come up with an alternative plan and quickly.
Seeing a $200-plus total on the bottom line was a cause for alarm, especially since we’re living on what’s known as a fixed income.
We’ve had to be careful, and by that I mean my wife did the work.
I’m not the kind of guy who pays attention to the household budget. I go to work, write my weekly epistles and simply hope for the best.
Having signed up for early Social Security and Medicare, I know what my monthly stipend is, but beyond that, I have no clue as to how the lights stay on, and that’s just the way I’ve always liked it.
Everything’s online nowadays anyway, and that kind of thing just doesn’t interest me, probably because I’m allergic to two-hour waits and listening to a person who couldn’t care less about me.
This is something my wife excels at, and I’m happiest when I don’t have to deal with things like remote Zoom meetings, endless questions about my mother’s maiden name and the family dogs.
It’s a hostile world, and I’m ill-equipped to grapple with its fangs.
To get back to the point, though, I haven’t missed watching television all that much, probably because there’s so little of any intrinsic value out there, aside from some live sporting events.
When I was growing up, the TV — always a black-and-white model since my father didn’t trust color sets — only brought in three channels, and I don’t remember feeling put-upon or ill-used; in fact, that was the way everybody lived, including most of my friends.
There was a family at the bottom of the hill where we lived that made big news around the neighborhood when they invested in something called a Tenna-Rotor, a device that would improve the picture quality by rotating the antenna on the roof. This was done via a control box in the living room, which was cool as all get out.
I remember a Sunday after church when my buddy approached with a gleam in his eyes, a sure sign he was onto something pretty big. He was one of the smartest kids in class and was always looking for ways to appear even smarter. This was his true gift.
He sidled up to me and whispered something incredible, a notion so outlandish it seemed like a science-fiction movie plot.
“You know the big game today,” he said, referring to a matchup between two of the NFL’s best teams. “Well, we get it on our TV.”
“No you don’t,” I said, knowing it was a network property and that we were bound by some rule that stated only the local team’s games would be carried. “We’re just getting the Browns again.”
He smiled and said, “We just got a Tenna-Rotor, and it picks up a ton of stations including one out of Pittsburgh. You should come over. It’s gonna be a great game. Bring some of that Choc-ola.”
So I walked down the hill, and sure enough, the Tenna-Rotor did its thing — I can still remember the clicking of the box — shifting to the east and there it was, in living color, a must-see football game I knew with a 10-year-old’s surety was in no way available to us.
That kind of technological wizardry was becoming more and more commonplace among middle-class Americans, possibly owing to the race to put a man on the moon, something so seemingly audacious, yet exhilaratingly possible, as the Mercury program became Gemini and Apollo waited its turn to make human history.
Kids rode Sting-Ray bikes and skateboards, hooked up slot-car tracks in their bedrooms, bounced Super Balls over the roof, and listened to rock music transmitted through their transistor radios.
We also spent an inordinate amount of time playing pickup football after school, putting off homework until we’d burned up all that energy in pursuit of passing and running and catching a ball.
Our town had nothing like Little League baseball for those who liked playing football, so we just made up teams and got together at various places, mostly open fields with no parental supervision.
Did kids ever get hurt? Well, yes, that did happen, but while catching a wayward elbow to the nose hurt for a while, there existed the possibility of evening the score when the chance arose.
And it wasn’t just for boys. Girls from the neighborhood might wander over, and once the rules were amended just a little bit, they were out there too, having innocent fun on an autumn afternoon.
In the years that have passed since those days, I sometimes marvel no one ever ended up in the emergency room because most games were played with a take-no-prisoners approach, something we assimilated by watching college and pro ball on the weekends.
I can’t do that anymore, not since we cut the cable last spring, but that’s probably for the best. When you’re as old as I am, catching a perfect pass for the winning touchdown is a joy best left in the past.
Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 6211 Cardinal Drive, New Bern, NC 28560. You’re invited to find him on his Facebook page, which could benefit from a Tenna-Rotor.