Who wants a TV dinner???

January 16, 2007

My Dad is what one might call an original homesteader. He was the 6th child to be born in 1934 right on the farm on which he (and our family) lived most of his life. The house he was born in, was later converted into a rickety old garage and I used to marvel at the thought of how he survived in those days. You know, the truly 2 mile walk to the tiny one room schoolhouse in any and ALL conditions. The disgusting old outhouse that he still enjoyed to use much later in life as he took his paper out there and watched the beautiful sunrise. Weirdo. He had no TV. Shared a telephone line with 8 other homesteads. He used handmedown torn up clothes and dropped out of school in the 9th grade to help out on the farm.

This morning, my daughter asked me what my favorite movies growing up as a child were. I explained to her that I only saw a few due to the fact that we only had 3 channels of TV, no VCR, no DVD and no money for movie theaters. I was 14 before a VCR came into my home. 12 for a microwave. Cell phones? Ridiculous. Of course not. And this brought out all sorts of questions from her as to what I lacked as a child growing up. And she, as I had done to my father, marvelled in awe at the hardships I had to endure. It got me thinking, what kind of questions will her children ask her about how bad SHE had it growing up? I mean really, how much better can it get for this generation?

Geez, well, umm....let's see, I didn't get a blackberry til I was 14, and umm....we didn't have Tivo so we had to watch our shows at the programmed times!! No remote car starter, only a 32 inch screen TV WITHOUT surround sound, omigawd! Oh and it was awful, we had a simple video game system called a PS2 that could only play DVDs. Heartbreaking.

Ask my Dad if he was happy growing up and he'll fondly reply there was no better time in his life! He played cards, and lots of baseball.

Ask me and I'll probably reply the same. I didn't play video games or watch movies. I played outside with turkeys, cornish hens and cats.

I wonder, is technology making our ability to sustain happiness on our own, virtually impossible? When are we going to stop wanting more?