A list of TV shows that were important to me while growing up. PART 1

Children's Shows
1. Romper Room
2. Sesame Street
3. Captain Kangaroo
4. The Electric Company
5. Mr. Dressup (It's a Canadian show)
6. Mr. Rogers Neighborhood
7. New Zoo Revue
8. H.R. Pufnstuf
9. The Banana Splits



Live-Action
1. Gilligan's Island
2. Lost In Space
3. The Munsters
4. Emergency!
5. The Addams Family
6. The Brady Bunch
7. The Monkeys
8. That's Incredible!
9. The Hulk
10. CHiPs
11. Hogan's Heroes
12. The Jefferson's
13. All In The Family
14. Space 1999
15. Battlestar Galactica (of course the original series)
16. The Muppet Show
17. The Tonight Show (w/Johnny Carson)
18. The Carol Burnett Show
19. The Dukes of Hazard
20. The Love Boat
21. Fantasy Island
22. Dallas
23. M*A*S*H

Oh...
24. The Waltons
25. Little House on the Prarie
26. Donny & Marie
27. Captain & Tenille
28. Sonny & Cher


Animated
1. All Classic Warner Brothers
2. Pink Panther
3. Scooby-Doo (pre-Scrappy Doo)
4. Speed Racer
5. Tom & Jerry (The earlier stuff. Not that 60's psychedelic trippin' stuff from later.)
6. Popeye
7. The Flintstones
8. The Jetsons

Measurement of Time

When I was about seven years old (the same age as my daughter is as I publish this) the world seemed to move at an incredibly slow almost glacial pace.

We would often travel around the state visiting relatives up in Cleveland, down in Dayton and elsewhere in various nearby locales.

As most any one knows a two or three hour car trip isn't an all day journey but to a seven year old it may as well be a transcontinental trip.

Even though I believe I could read the time on a clock I didn't have a good grasp of time as it relates to, well, time.

"How much longer?" I would ask. "Oh. forty-five minutes.", mom would say.

Forty-five minutes? My mom and dad might as well have tried to explain to me.

Forty-five minutes? How long is that?

I did what I had to.

If I was going to truly understand what that meant I had ask the same question with a slightly different angle.

"How many Gilligan's Islands is that?" I asked.

Ah yes, I was a Gilligan's Island junkie. I watched the show so often that the half-hour space it occupied had a real sense of time to me.

"Oh, about one and a half episodes I suppose." Mom or Dad would reply.

Aha! Now I understood.

The only way that time (as esoteric as it is), had any meaning to me at age seven.

Things I miss or will soon...

Phone Booths
Cigarette Vending Machines
WALK/DONT WALK Signs
Mailboxes on the Street Corner
Returnable 16 oz. Glass Soda Bottles
Free Matchbooks at the Cash Register
Mechanical Gas Pumps
Rotary Dial Phones
35mm Film

A short conversation with an outgoing individual.

My daughter and a friend are sitting playing a video game when the friend asks, "Do you know what outgoing means?"

She replied, "Yeah. When you go out shopping a lot."

"No, it means you get a lot of boyfriends." her friend answered.

This was followed by a moment of silence.

Pearls of wisdom.

One morning while sitting for breakfast our daughter said, "You can't pick out a wedgie if you're sitting on it."

Oh how true that is! She is wise beyond her years.

You're not the boss of me!

It was a rough night of sleep. Our 7 year-old daughter had trouble staying asleep and was still up two hours after bedtime. In fact she was having trouble sleeping most of the night.

I hated to wake her up but it was only a half an hour before she had to be at school.

I finally got her up and to move toward the bathroom. After she sat there for a while I said to her again, "Come on sweetheart, hurry up. We need to keep moving." "You're not the boss of me!", she said. "Uh... Yes I am!" I said sternly. "No your not! Mommy is." To which I quickly added, "And I am too." To which she closed the argument with, "No. Mommy's the boss of instruction! You're the boss of fun."

What I believe. (But ask me again in the future.)

These are top-of-the-mind thoughts that I wished to put down somewhere with the hope of further exploring my positions as time goes on.

1. I believe in God and I believe in evolution.
2. I believe that God is not a Republican or a Democrat.
3. I believe in the separation of Church and State.
4. I believe in a strong military but I believe in diplomacy.
5. I believe everyone has the right to own a gun but I believe in background checks.
6. I believe a woman has the right to choose even if you or I don't like abortion.
7. I believe there should be a path for immigrants to earn their citizenship.
8. I believe building a wall along the Mexican border is a stupid idea.
9. I believe an individual has the right to burn our flag. Although it makes me sad.
10. I believe taxes are a rip-off and a flat tax with no deductions is the way to go.
11. I believe the death penalty is an idea whose time has come to pass.



To be continued...