may 8, 2008

growing up in 1970s baltimore during what he felt was the golden age of american popular culture he spent a fair amount of time in front of a black and white tv with no remote other than his younger brother who was often told to get up and change the channel from 2 to 11 to 13 to 45 because those were all the channels in the pre-cable days unless it was cloudy and he could get stooges reruns on 5 out of washington dc.

movies then were great too since the boundaries of morality and something known as good taste challenged parents and clergy and caused the rise of a group known as the moral majority and allowed kids titillation and belly laughs and an overall awakening.

other time was spent tethered to the wall by an eight foot coil known as a phone cord while talking to his buddies or later his girlfriends while listening to the captain and tennille and later to van halen while stretching the cord into the dining room from the kitchen or their bedroom from the hallway or from his parents and into adolescence.

but today he looks in the newspaper as he is one of the dying breed that gets his info in tactile black and white and not through a wifi connection and sees that don rickles that hockey puck is 82 and toni tennille is 68 and earth wind and fire philip bailey is 57 and alex van halen is 55 and stephen flounder furst is 54 and half-pint melissa gilbert is 44 - and his own little brother and former channel changer is 43 - and as he looks up to ponder how all of this happened his son glances away from hannah montana and points the remote his way and says dad are you crying?