Television

If you asked me about television shows from the late 50's until the mid 80's, I knew all about what was on television. I watched a LOT of television. The first year I lived in Lubbock, I did not own a television, but I had a subscription to Newsweek http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek.html and my home town newspaper, The Greenfield Recorder, http://www.recorder.com/ both of which kept me apprised of television news.

As television expanded beyond the three, then four major networks and PBS http://www.pbs.org/, and cable/satellite came along, I could not keep up with all of the television shows, even the ones that were so popular.  Partly because I did not want to watch that much television. Partly because I preferred The Weather Channel http://www.weather.com/ and sports to series, sit-coms and the reality TV shows. And partly because I did not subscribe to premium channels.

So, when people talk about current TV shows, I am frequently at a loss in regards to what they are discussing.  I want to keep up but most of the TV shows are not worth it, and I just do not care.

I find that I am more and more interested in the programming on PBS.  I also like The History Channel http://www.history.com/, although the quality of its programming has vastly diminished.

I used to sometimes turn on the TV for the background noise.  I grew up in a home with 4 siblings, two parents, and for a while, a very quiet uncle. But, because of the number of people in the house, there was lots of background noise.

As I have aged, I find I like the silence, and sometimes, I prefer the silence to the background noise. I find I prefer music to the chatter of TV.  I listen to classical music, easy listening music, bagpipes, or Gregorian chants instead of the chatter of TV.

I am blessed at being able to make these choices about watching TV or listening to the radio or music.

So, I am no longer the television guru that I was 30 years ago. But I think that is good.