The Good Old Days

Remember when daytime TV used to be fun? Oh, how I remember the glory days of TLC daytime: full of A Makeover Story, A Dating Story, A Wedding Story, and A Baby Story. Also, there used to be a whole lot more reruns of classic TV sitcoms. How are kids today ever going to know anything about Bewitched? Or I Dream of Jeannie? Laverne and Shirley? Gidget? I saw all of these shows as afternoon reruns when I was growing up. The only classic reruns I ever see on now are The Brady Bunch. What happened to all of the others?

It saddens me to know that my children will reach adulthood without knowing that Laverne's favorite drink was milk and Pepsi. Remember how she always poured it into that glass that made it look like it was all swirled in stripes? I was so disappointed the one time I tried making a milk and Sprite (we never had Cola) at home and it didn't turn out stripey. And it tasted pretty strange too.

I don't understand what has happened. There were still court TV shows and talk shows on when I was young. I guess there just weren't as many. Well, I KNOW there weren't as many. As a child I remember The People's Court and Phil Donahue. Remember how he would run and leap and lean all over people to get the microphone to people in his audience? I wonder what he's doing now...I see his wife, MaryLou Hennar, on all of those St. Jude commercials. I guess that's one other thing that's taken over daytime TV: commercials. Specifically infomercials. What really annoys me is that they play a lot of those mini-infomercials on Nick Jr. So my kids will happily be watching Dora the Explorer and then suddenly it becomes a loud advertisement for "Snuggie - the blanket with sleeves!". This happens so often that CT has internalized the medium of the infomercial. The other day he was playing with one of his toy vehicles and made it into his own infomercial. He was saying things like (and I promise I am not making this up to make my child seem hilarious) "But wait! It can also go super fast! And watch this! Tires that spin around and around! All this for only three dollars!"

I was complaining about the infomercial on kids TV to my sister Sally who also has young children. She said, "I know! It's terrible. Dallin keeps bugging me to buy things he sees on those commercials. He REALLY wants me to get the Aqua Globes, and we don't even have any house plants."

I guess it's just as well that daytime TV is so lame now, because I don't have the opportunity to watch it. Still, I think of my kids growing up in a world where the after school reruns they see will be things like...I have no idea. I've been sitting here looking at the screen trying to think of current sitcoms and I just don't know any. But whatever they are, I'm sure they wont be as entertaining and endearing as Samantha and the two Darrens, or Gidget, Larue, and Moon Doggie. We'll just have to get Netflix so they can see them. And Sesame Street before it was corrupted by Elmo (as Gina so wisely pointed out).

***This has nothing to do with my post but just as an aside for those who know me well: We were at a gathering of friends today and one of the women referred to me as being "so soft-spoken". Me! Can you believe it? Do you think I've changed, or do you think she just doesn't know me well?

T-Shirts and Mortality

I have T-shirt that has a hole in it. Right in the front and center, which seems like a very strange place for a T-shirt to wear out. I got this T-shirt in 1992. A high-school friend and I decided to do an exchange of t-shirts from our respective new universities. She went to Trinity, in Texas, and I went to BYU. I wear this Trinity t-shirt just for pajamas now, but I used to wear it a lot for real, too. Many of you have probably seen it on me. It just struck me as amazing that I have been routinely wearing this T-shirt for SEVENTEEN YEARS. Is that crazy? I can't even believe I've been out of high school that long. I mean, I remember going to my dad's 20th High school reunion as a family, and I was about 12 or something. I'm almost the age my dad was then? It boggles the mind...but on the other hand, that was one well made t-shirt, wouldn't you say?