About the Cable

Tet Offensive 

We were ginger and orange native stones;
quiet, still, like the dead aren’t really sleeping,
when my father climbed out of patrol cars,
Pontiacs, and dented pickups, ticket debris
blowing behind him.

Evenings, we might run across wooden floors
waxed every Saturday, laughing, pretending
to be Skyhawks or Dragonflies.

Or, we could be waist deep in marshes, like
visitors in jungles somebody needed to save.

Sometimes we scattered like rabbits through the blackjacks,

depending on the war.

 

We’ve officially turned off the cable. The only access to the outside world is the Internet and rabbit ears. I now have access to MeTV, the grand station that plays all the baby boomer shows from the 50s and 60s like: The Rifleman, Lost In Space, The Twilight Zone, Emergency, Big Valley (I could go on…Father Knows Best) all of the shows I grew up watching as a kid. 

I find myself in a time warp where everything is okay or if there is an “Emergency,” it’s still okay because these stories just don’t end on a bad note. There’s always a life lesson and happy ever after. I thought I would die without cable news and AMC, but I’ve finally settled in just fine having these programs hum in the background as I piddle around the house in the evening like Aunt Bea. 

I compare the storylines to how things are today and think, ah we’re all lost! But that’s the backstage drama teacher in me scenario, “Who lit Ebenezer Scrooge’s hair on fire with a bic lighter?!” On the contrary, I find these old shows to be more like a warm blanket, calming, and I begin to remember things from my childhood. 

It was an innocent time, but far from peaceful. I remember turbulence mixed with Roger’s Grocery store where you could buy anything in a 10 x 20 foot space, green lizards, and Pixie Stix. We lived naïve, shiny lives with fathers tucking children into bed saying nightly prayers as the Vietnam War blared every night on TV, a constant reminder that our world was miraculously shielded from danger. But in the back of our minds, and the pit of our stomachs, we walked through minefields.  We had a curious way of blocking out the severity of it all, especially as children, except when older classmates’ brothers were killed at eighteen and we realized the television was a sinister mix of truth and fiction. After watching medics carry men to helicopters with bandages over their eyes, Leave It To Beaver was good medicine for washing away the fevers of war.  

I visit my childhood town every now and then. There is a memorial in the city square

with the names of those young men inlayed in bronze plaques along the sidewalk near the fallen soldier statue, near the courthouse where I read so many books every summer. I was constantly scolded because I needed to get outside and play-- not have my nose stuck in a book with Tarzan!  Maybe my parents just wanted me to create my own stories and plays where everything turned out okay.

So for now, today, never the child again, I shall be content with rabbit ears and have faith the sky won’t be falling in this era— where the troubles of the world whir in cables, overpowered by ancient tunes of TV Land.