About Taking and Bringing

by G.. E. Shuman

There is a lesson in the curriculum I use with my eighth grade English class, which is entitled "Using Troublesome Verbs Correctly."  A subheading to this short lesson states: "Take or Bring?"  Take indicates movement away from you.  Bring indicates movement toward you."  Examples might be that we "take out the trash, but bring in the groceries."  You see what I mean.
It really isn't my intention here, to bring you a lesson in eighth grade English, but I thought it was interesting that I would be discussing such a topic with the kids, and then realizing the depth to which society and technology have switched the reality of taking and bringing, in our actual, physical lives.  Here are examples of those physical things that seem to have changed.  I am not suggesting that all of these changes are bad... I'm just saying that I have noticed them.
Years ago we might take the kids to the library.  Now computers bring the library to us. (Not a bad thing, unless you happen to work at the library.)
We also used to take a date to the movies.  These days, we bring the movie home, or, more likely, have it delivered to us through our WIFI. (Also not a bad thing, unless you happen to own a movie theatre.)
Parents used to take their kids to college.  I am painfully aware that this still happens, through personal experince, but now, more often than not,  the student's laptop brings college to them.
When I was young, the parents of nearly every child would take that child to church.  Now the TV brings the preaching right into our homes, but, in this case, there is no substitute here for the real thing.  Besides, what kid watches TV preachers when cartoons are on?
Husbands used to take their wives shopping.  (UGH.)  Now the internet brings the shopping to her, and the UPS driver brings the things she bought. (I actually like this one, expecially  I because I detest shopping and because my wife works for UPS.)
When I was young, (back when rocks were soft) we, once in a while, were taken out for pizza.  Now someone brings the pizza to our door, in a free and nifty cardboard box that is good for absolutely nothing except delivering pizza.
The strangest situation, to me, is that doctors used to bring their exam and diagnosis to your home, in a medical service called a house call.  Imagine that?  This changed, long ago, and then we all had to be taken to those doctors.  That was, of course, until webmd.com started bringing their answers right into our homes again.
Good grief, Charlie Brown!  It really is no wonder that social media has sprung up around our world.  It is the only real socialization people get these days.
It is also interesting, to me, that we now actually have 3-D TV.  I will probably be the last person in Vermont to buy one, but I'm sure it's "just like the real thing."  Men, (Yes, right now I'm talking to the men out there.)  I do have some advice for  you, (You knew I would.)  before you go out and buy that 3-D television on which to watch the next big game.  The advice is this.  Get your eyes, your typing fingers, and your mind off the networks and the internet, and get your sorry butt up off of that chair.  Then take your wife out for the evening.  It won't be a 3-D experience "just like the real thing."  It will BE the real thing.  (I swear, I was born 100 years too late.)

Something Worth Watching

by G. E. Shuman

One cold and lonely evening last week, the kids were out, my wife was at work, and I did something that is quite unusual for me to do.  I went to the living room and turned on the TV.  Yes, I know how ridiculous it sounds, that turning on a TV is an unusual event, but I don't do it often.  It isn't that we don't use our TV, it's just that I am nearly never the one who actually turns the thing on.  I may stop in the room and watch a show with my wife or the kids, but it probably wasn't my idea.
Years ago, for some reason, I seem to have wandered away from the very old habit of spending every evening in front of  'the tube', as television used to be called.  (These days almost no one has a TV with a picture 'tube', except for our family and some guy in India, I think.)  After that cold and lonely evening last week, I am beginning to believe that TV also wandered away from me, as much as I did from it.  Please let me explain.
You see, I actually come from a time before there were hundreds of channels to watch, and even before TVs had remotes.  Can you believe that?  When I was a child we watched either CBS, NBC or ABC, and I still remember the three channels that those networks occupied on the 'dial,' in our area.  On the 'dial?'  What electronic device even has a dial anymore?
Don't get me wrong, I was not in a coma for all these years that TV has evolved, or devolved into what it is today, and there are still some quality shows being made.   I just remember, fondly, those days when there was a lot to watch on TV, just on those three networks.  Right after the evening news with Walter 'Crankcase,' as my dad used to call him, the sitcoms, comedy hours, and evening dramas would come on.  Those old shows, when they were new, actually stayed in their special weeknight time slots for years and years.  You always knew when Red Skelton, Carol Burnett, and Archie Bunker would appear.  The Wonderful World of Disney, and Bonanza entered millions of homes every Sunday evening.  Those shows, in those days, seemed almost a part of your family.  Later, in the seventies, a show called MASH made it for ten seasons, and had fans so committed that they would miss their own birthday party to watch it.  (Those were the days before recording video was possible in homes, and men chiseled pictures into the walls of caves.)  As old as all of this makes me sound, I really think that kids now have no idea what they are missing, from the golden years of TV.

Things have changed so much.  After I located the TV remote, on that cold and lonely night, (Are you feeling sorry for me yet?) and the satellite remote and the surround sound remote, I scrolled through hundreds of possibilities of things to watch on the endless channel menu, and actually saw the following titles of today's evening shows: Wife Swap, Dance Moms, Easy Wrinkle Miracle, Brazil Butt Lift, (That one actually intreagued me a bit.) Live Jewelry Deals,  Best Vacuum Ever, Improve Prostate Heath (wow), Insanity Workout, Easy Wrinkle Miracle (again, in case you missed it the first time), Trisha's Southern Kitchen, Swamp People, The Dead, Beautiful Bedroom, Property Wars, Cake Boss, Mad Money, Balding?, The Beauty of Snakes, (and my favorite) My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding.   Really?...  I mean, REALLY... REALLY?
Saddened to discover that I am an unenlightened dinosaur, incapable of appreciating the merits of these wonderful shows, (After all, someone actually produced them.) I picked the remote back up, searched the sea of buttons until I found the one with the 'off' icon, and pushed that thing, hard.  Where is Red Skelton when you need him?  (Kids, remember that name, buy a disk of his old shows, and laugh your keesters off.  If you know what a keester is.)
When the satellite dish contract is up, I might just rip that thing off the house and mount it on the front lawn, with its little gray bowl pointing straight up.  I think it will make a wonderful bird bath.  At least then it will finally bring  me something worth watching.