Sidebar: For any ‘youngans’ that might be having some difficulty understanding what that might have been like, let me paint you a more modern picture. Not having cable TV in the eighties, was like not having a cell phone today. I’m not just talking about being off the iPhone 4 bandwagon, I’m talking about not having ANY cell phone at all. Get it?
All the other kids
had this crazy phenomenon except me. Most
could seemingly tell at a distance that I didn’t have it too, like there was
some destitute look or disturbing aroma that I gave off. (Perhaps there was a secret decoder ring given away with the subscriptions? How was I to know?) Others, who weren’t as keen, seemed to lose
their hearing once I had told them I went without it. “YOU DON’T HAVE CABLE TV?” they’d gasp in
disbelief. Ah, didn’t I just tell you that, dumbass?? Their conversation with me would then fall as silent as the grave, and
they'd slowly move away as if I was going to steal their programming via some
disease or black magic. If we had an
elementary school yearbook, you would have found my picture under “Hes The One Without Cable TV” title.
On a clear and non rainy day, I had 9 channels
to choose from – 2,4,5,7,10,12,25,38,56, all broadcasting over two VHF bands and
one UHF band. They didn’t have cool names like HBO, or Showtime either; they
just went by their lame numbers. To get
them to come in clearly (I use the term loosely), I first had to know what city
was broadcasting the channel and where it was in relation to my house. (North,
South, etc) Then I had to rotate a knob
on the antenna box, which in turn would operate the motorized roof antenna to
point to that city broadcasting the station. Yeah, real space age stuff. If I was lucky, V66 would be on and I might
be able to actually watch it through the snowy reception and finally see what
all of the video hype was about. (I
suppose I’m lucky it was in color at least.)
Good times I tell ya. Good times.
I didn’t have a Walkman either. Or a personal computer or any advanced video
game console. Heck we didn’t even have a
window AC to cool us down in the summer. I had Twist-A-Plot books, plastic
car models, a 20 year old metal fan, and the Sears Telegames rip-off
of the Atari 2600 we got in 1984, two years AFTER the more advanced 5200 came
out. Yeah, there was never a risk of us
loosing blood on the cutting edge of anything.
We were old school before there was an old school to be from. It was probably a new school back then, but
it went obsolete because it didn’t have a cable TV feed. 
But you know
what? 20 years after my final teenage
year, I’m still thankful to my parents for not spoiling me with all of that useless
crap. I learned very quickly that a lot
of those kids in school, watching MTV or playing with video games was all they
ever did. Their idea of a great weekend
was seeing how many R rated movies they could get away with watching without
their parents finding out, or flipping 100,000 points in Donkey Kong or Space
Invaders. They were incredibly boring to hang around
because all they wanted to do was watch or play with the damn TV. They never
went outside and they most certainly never read anything beyond a TV guide. Me on
the other hand, I spent a lot of time outdoors riding my bike, playing with the
other kids in the neighborhood, who too had cheap parents thankfully. We played
the typical stuff kids played – street hockey, baseball with invisible men,
tag, hide and seek, Red Rover, 1,2,3 Stoplight, Cat and Mouse etc. I spent time in friend’s pools playing Marco
Polo, rang doorbells, (not phones!) to see if friends could come out and play,
and spent many a night waiting for the Mr. Lemon truck to come around so I
could get lemon slush with a pretzel rod stirrer or a Screwball ice cream. Those were the days. When it was time to come home, my mom would
literally yell our names out the back door like a primitive intercom system, and
we’d yell back to let her know we were coming home. We were a block and a half away. No joke – that’s the way it was.
All that “extra”
time I had NOT playing video games and learning useless trivia (is there any
useful trivia?) about MTV Veejays, I put to
good use listening to and appreciating music, reading magazines about cars, and
most importantly, learning about people and relationships. That last one wasn’t
planned…it was just something that happened because I spent so much time with
other kids. Instead of staying in to learn how to beat level 15 of Zaxxon, I learned how to talk to people, how to get
along with them and how to size someone up based on the limited knowledge of
them I had. (It helped too that I was
the youngest of four, so I got to see firsthand what NOT to do when testing
authority figures) I learned to listen
before I spoke and I learned to hear what someone wasn’t saying. TV couldn’t
teach you that. Building relationships with
those tools has served me well. And believe
it or not, you learn a lot about people through the eyes of an 11 year old. They don’t think you’re paying attention, but
you are.
Onward to my point.
My favorite Japanese
proverb (yeah, like I know more than one) has always been “When the
character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.” Now I didn’t know it at the time, but I’ve
always followed that idiom when deciding to whom I would become friends. Did I want to be friends with the kids who got
in trouble all the time? No, not really. What fun was that? They were always in detention, or grounded. Lame. Did I want to be friends with the ones who
were into all the “bad boy” stuff. i.e. sneaking cigarettes, stealing booze,
doing drugs, and hanging out in the
middle of the night getting arrested? I
passed on those guys too. Seems like a terrible waste of every weekend , don’t
you think? I always did.
This line of
thinking didn’t leave many people to actually BE friends with, but I stuck to
my guns and consequently today, I am still very much friends with 12 people whom
I’ve known and have been close to, for over 24 years. One of them I’ve known even longer - since the
6th grade. I am proud to call
each one a friend and in true form, I’m proud to be represented by them. If you
were to interview these people and base who I was on the way they present
themselves, I’d be blessed to be the person you’d come up with. They are all
very good people.
Whenever I think the
whole world is crashing in and becoming a cesspool of degenerates, (which is often)
or when I feel like I’m the only one left on the planet that thinks the way I
do, all I have to do is talk to them about how they are raising their kids, or
how they are living their lives, and I’m back on track. Be it the lawyers, the janitors, the self
defense instructors, the DPW workers, the mechanics, the Verizon gurus, or any
of my friends that are more easily classified as office professionals, we all view
the world and our future the same way. We share common beliefs and ideals; we support
the same moral and ethical codes, and we can relate to each other on almost
every level. Money doesn’t divide us,
nor does our status in life. We are
friends and that is all we see when we get together and I wouldn’t have it any
other way.
Do I consider myself
lucky? Of course I do. All the careful planning and forethought of
any worthwhile goal isn’t worth a damn without a little bit of luck your side –
I’ve seen too much to think otherwise. But
take note, I did have a little something to do with all of this way back when I
could have been playing those video games.
All those years without all those distractions taught me a lot about who
I was on the inside, and who I wanted to be.
I knew early on my identity, and not being confused about that, allowed
me more time to focus on those with whom I wanted to associate. I didn’t waste that time watching Kurt Loder or Adam Curry. I knew who I liked and who I didn’t like at a very young age, but more importantly, I knew why I like them. The friends
have today I wouldn’t trade for anything and my hope is they’d say the same about me.
I was in a terrible
mood the other night. Nothing was going right all day, and it was really one of
those days where I would have been better off staying in bed. I almost canceled the dinner plans
I had with 3 of my friends I was so bent out of shape. But I went anyway, and
I’m glad I did. A little bit of talking,
a little bit of understanding and a little bit of knowing you’re not the only
one on the planet with issues goes a long
way to putting me in a better mood. I have friends that I can tell anything,
and they won’t judge. They’ll offer
honest advice and help whenever they can.
Most people can count close friends on one hand. I am proud to say I’ve
got to at least take off my shoes to get that high. 
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