I’m retired, and still adjusting. I’m tempted to say, if asked, unemployed. For good or ill, nobody’s asked. I’ve given some thought to striking up a conversation with one of the other people walking through the park while I am.
It needs work. I’m afraid people will think I’m looking for a handout. I wouldn’t have the intestinal fortitude to turn down a few dollars if they offered. No need to tempt fate, yes?
I’m a little lost and don’t know where to turn. I eavesdrop on the people in the park, the women who walk, powerful and with a purpose, as they rocket past me, the married couple, lost in their years together, their silence punctuated by a few kind expressions, the men, strolling with purpose, the privilege of being a man, their voices are loud, and sometimes arrogant. But their words are only sounds. Nothing more than a suggestion, many alien, artificial, odd passages of sound, with hidden meanings, wash over me, I’m a stranger in my own time. I’m alone in my quest for fulfillment.
My social and news feeds are filled with Paramount +, Disney +, Sling. More technology, more monthly payments, more choices. Life is getting more complicated all the time. It isn’t enough you have to decide which network to choose, you have to decide which program to watch.
I realize now that life has left me behind. We have a television, and a cable box, with a remote control and DVR. But we don’t have any streaming services. We have to watch what the programming people at various networks decide to broadcast.
We haven’t seen Yellowstone. I’ve seen a few clips of angry people swearing at and threatening each other on Facebook and Twitter.
My version of the Marvel Universe is distant memories of Spiderman and Dracula comics long ago. I’m not certain if those were Marvel or DC. Comic books are so expensive and so quickly finished. In my old age, I prefer thrift store paperbacks, the kind with notes scrawled in the margins and the title page, a story within a story. You can usually pick them up for a dollar or less.
We talked about getting Netflix or Hulu or one of the numerous services. It just seems so complicated, and we looked at the shows and movies offered. It was overwhelming. Some programs we didn’t want to watch when they were free. There were several series we enjoyed, but we don’t want to pay to watch them again.
Every service has movies, whole lists of movies. Movies are a big commitment, a considerable gamble. Some of them are over 2 hours long. How do you pick one? What if you invest an hour and a half in front of a sizzling performance, hanging on every word, wired into every plot twist, pausing long enough to make some popcorn, get a cold drink, answer the call of nature, and then the end stinks. I watched, rapt, six seasons of Lost only to be reduced to hopeless rage by the least effective, most boring series finale in television history.
I’ve decided I’ll just live with the programming that comes without cable, AT&T U-Verse, if you’re interested.
There is value in the old programs, you can learn everything you need to know from Rawhide. The value of teamwork, the importance of accepting responsibility for your actions, always finishing what you start. Also, they tackle the harsh lessons of life, intolerance, bigotry, superstition, lessons driven home, brutally, normally with the death of the guilty, or indolent.
In Rawhide, Incident of the Wanderer, a wandering peddler came into camp after a terrible rainstorm. He was incongruously, suspiciously dry. Michob, the wanderer was trying to get to a small town to testify on behalf of an accused murderer.
At first, the cowboys welcomed the unusual stranger into their midst. When a string of accidents left them shorthanded and afraid, they began to blame the stranger. There was a fist fight, not uncommon, where the stranger, though smaller and less formidable, put the cowhand on his back, and made him ask for a quarter. When the cowhand who had challenged him to a fight got trampled in a stampede and lay dying the peddler offered him kindness and succor, and the cowboy pleaded with him not to leave his side. It was a touching moment when the cowboy offered his heartfelt apologies, and there was a lesson, obvious and brutal. In less than forty minutes, not counting commercials.
Of course, there is no need explaining the values and moral lessons taught on The Andy Griffith Show or Leave it to Beaver. Small acts of kindness and charity, formatted to meet the needs of a newly christened middle class.
In “Opie’s Charity”, season 1 episode 8 of The Andy Griffith Show, Opie only gave three cents to a school charity, and claims he was saving his money to buy his girlfriend a present. Andy, Opie’s dad was worried what people would think, of Opie, and by extension the whole family, if his son was such a cheapskate, a miser, who was wrapped tightly around a tiny vixen’s finger. In the end, Opie was worried because his “girlfriend” needed a new coat for school, and her family was too poor to afford one. Another classic case of reverse generational influence.
There are odd things popping up in the old shows. Jim Hardie, a smooth-talking, quick-draw agent on Tales of the Wells Fargo, arrested Jed Clampett, from The Beverly Hillbillies for robbery. It was probably before he found oil in the rugged hills of Appalachia. Things took a turn toward the weird, though, when the Professor from Gilligan’s Island comes to take Mr. Clampett away and hang him. He, the professor, wanted to hang him, Jed Clampett, because of a betrayal that almost resulted in the Professor’s hanging, legally. Apparently, the professor and the oil tycoon had committed a robbery at some point. When the heat came Jed Clampett ran and left the professor to take the heat. Somehow, and I was starting dinner, so I’m not sure what happened, a small-town Mr. Clampett had heroically, almost single-handedly saved at one time, from an Indian (native American) attack, interceded and saved him, Jed Clampett, and Agent Jim Hardy, from the Professor and his gang of desperate outlaws.
We may tire of the old shows, the old messages, hammered into our daily lives. We may spring for a streaming service, but how do you choose, there are so many options, one is too many, and three would never be enough. For now, though, I’m happy with Andy, Opie, Ward and the Beaver, Gil Favor, and Wagon Train. I still have a lot to learn.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
