Everyone in this household is thinking about the upcoming inaguration of President-elect Obama. Are you going? What party are you going to attend? Where are you going to view it? At what cost are you willing to attend something that you may or may not observe ? I am taller than a lot of people but when you are talking about millions of people in attendance I think I may, at one time or another, be blocked from viewing the inaguration simply from the massesin attendance.
I believe that TV has changed my desire to be in attendance. The advent of new technologies that disperse these events through the air waves and the receptors that produce the pictures after being sent. You see I am one of those people that can remember the shear joy of having a test pattern to view on black and white TV. In my generation snow on a TV was a positive thing. The TV was warming up almost ready for a broadcast picture from the network Then came the test patterns. A sure sign that the networks were coming to life. I am from the generation that pre-dates the clicker…remote….channel changer. I WAS the original channel changer. I laid on the floor in front of the TV and changed the channel as requested by my Mother, Father, hired man, aunts, uncles,brothers, sisters, cousins, and even a cattle-buyer eating noon meal at my families kitchen table. Consequently, I cannot remember a time that I did not have access to a TV. There have been so many events that I have witnessed on live television that allowed me to be there in the comfort of my own home, with considerable monetary savings. A fifty yard line, box seat, birds eye view, with instant replay plus concise and cogent analysis. (Ok, maybe no so cogent commentary sometimes) Just given the fact that I witnessed the astonauts rocket into space as a young boy with my father in our farm home in Iowa, I knew, even though I was not there, that I would have the image and the memory of sharing those space shots with my father because of the televsion.
So from my vantage point I have made a preference shift of thought as to what is witnessing and what is attending something to witness it such as physically attending. I would be crazy to say that I would not want to attend! If a front row seat to the inaguration were to be offered I would be the first to take it with out a doubt. With that said, I also know that when I view the inaguration videos at a later time, I would be viewing all the things that I missed. The televison coverage gives me information that I have pondered plus it brings up a whole lot of questions that I had never thought about. Some being good and some being not so good. But the commentary always stimulates my thoughts as to where I stand in the whole scheme of things.
So what I am saying is…I would attend if given the oppurtunity. Knowing that that is not an option makes viewing the inaguaration on the latest video technology that man has to offer society some how easier. The stage and scene all digitally remastered through the airwaves to give me a picture that is better than being there. The smells of the city may be missing yet I think that I can live without the smell of car exhausts and industrial polution. Mix that smell with the smell of countless BTU’s being expended by the millions of 98.6 degree’d BTU burners I like to call people. Now that is a memory that may or may not produce a warm fuzzy moment.
I hope my wife records the inaguration so we can, in the years to come, re-live the moment with the same view, the same sounds, at exactly the same time and instill in our children that witnessing and being a part of something does not always mean one must attend. It is of the mind and spirit that I am talking about. I miss my moments with my Father. As I miss my own Mother. Both are at rest together at last. I hope it was as good a moment for them as it was for me. Watching the test patterns on TV with my Mother and Father will always be the linking moment, that will make television and what it provides to me, the memory between my Mother and Father. I would die a happy man if I were able to instill that feeling into my own son.
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