Listen to Jim’s podcast: https://youtu.be/RF2ZPW5PdoI
or read his words below. Or do both.
RISE OF THE ELECTRIC DREAM REARRANGER
“Be the last kid on your block to discover the wonders of television!”
The excited announcer on my small Bakelite radio receiver extols the endless joys of owning a television set. Only what he really says is, “Be the FIRST kid on your block to discover the wonders…”
To me, a 1950s kid accustomed to living among neighbors and playmates and closely-tied family, the arrival of a television set means the end of childhood. Almost the end of neighborhood. Certainly the end of playmates.
I find out about The Electric Dream Changer the first time I hop off the front porch and go yelling for the attention of my buddies—the kids I play with each summer day in this tiny world of Eastwood Avenue.
This one day, one of us is missing.
“Oh, Lenny, his folks got a new tv set,” Bubba tells me.
“Oh,” I say. “Well, when is he coming over?”
Bubba chews on a small piece of sugar cane and gazes down the street toward Lenny’s house. “He’s waiting for the show to come on. I don’t think he’ll be here for a while.”
“The show” is a black-and-white test pattern that stares back at the viewer, waiting to be replaced by Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody.
I reassess the playtime situation and wonder how gazing at a glass rectangle could be as much fun as playing Tarzan of the Apes in the back yard.
No more than a few days later, Bubba is gone, too, whisked away by another new television set.
Soon, I am playing by myself. Or playing with brother Ronny. Or, now and then, with any other tv-less kid on the block.
Sitting on the front porch after sundown, I await the usual passers-by, the neighbors and friends and relatives who visit and chat and gossip. Familiar faces now and then bearing gifts of pie or cookies or goodwill.
They stop coming as often. They are home, watching television.
I sigh and retreat into my small room and do what I always do when bereft of companions. I read. I write. I take notes. I ponder. I read some more.
It’s always comforting, being alone in my exciting land of books and imagination. But now I have to adjust to the fact that there will be no break-time for running amok outdoors. I rearrange my dreams to match my small reality. I become comfortable with myself.
But now and then I still miss those spontaneous play times, those instant yells and laughs, those boisterous and corny jokes. The ease with which we all share childhood.
Nowadays, as a writer, I get to remind myself and anyone paying attention, that there was once a time when face-to-face was so much fun.
When we just entertained one another.
When we didn’t delegate our so-precious time to faraway strangers
© 2019 A.D. by Jim Reed