015 - Television (2 - Coming and Going)

The Last Apricot Tree Under the Mountain

If you had a TV, there were four channels in your home: 3 (NBC), 10 (CBS), 13 (ABC) and 40 (I can’t remember). As a ten-year-old, there were things that mattered and things that did not matter.

In the loose order of importance, I would have to say that “Batman” mattered the most to me, by far. The fact that each episode was a cliff hanger or a resolution, dominated my mind. To this day, I can hardly stand not knowing what is going to happen in any book, movie or television show. How are the dynamic duo ever gonna get out of the giant clam? I still have nightmares that Batman will get a logging ripsaw right through his codpiece. I think that as a result, I still often read the end of a book first to relieve my anxiety, and then I go back and read the rest of the book. I blame Batman trauma. Why couldn’t the show be like Scooby-Doo and wrap things up every episode?

Parents and babysitters say I spent a lot of time wearing a cape while running around singing the Batman tagline. They say I jumped out of a window, because I confused Batman and Superman and thought the Bat could fly. That was a painful lesson in superpower details.

Next up in priority was Saturday morning cartoons. I used to be able to remember the line-up. I could look it up but the details don’t matter to me as much as the ritual. It was just what everyone did. Everyone. At some point “Ultraman” and “Speed Racer” became important on the weird UHF Channel 40. Spoiler alert: when I found out that Racer X was Speed’s older brother I nearly had a heart attack. No way. I did not see that coming.

Finally, there was Sunday night with Walt Disney. TV watching was strictly curtailed on Sundays. As we all got older and as the Oakland Raiders took a prominent place in our family culture, we added an exception. If you didn’t cause any trouble getting ready for church, and if you stayed as reverent as a little kid could during the Lord’s day, you could join the family for some wholesomely violent entertainment.

Under my maternal grandmother’s influence, I need to mention the soap opera “All My Children.” At one point we were all worried about Phil, who was lost in Vietnam - so worried that it affected my mom’s spiritual practice. Mom never skipped her morning and evening prayers. It was a foundational ritual of hers that provided comfort by its authentic consistency. I still pass her window early in the morning and feel that she is there on her knees, six years after her passing.

Well, one morning she found herself praying fervently for Phil’s safe return. When she snapped out of it, that was the end of “All My Children” and a long spell of hyper-vigilant TV time monitoring. I am still not sure why we had to skip “Speed Racer” because she forgot Phil wasn’t real. I never prayed that Speed and Trixie would get married! Although I hoped they would.

There were other things on TV like boys dying in a jungle on the nightly news. I didn’t realize that it was the same jungle Phil was lost in. Migrant farm workers were marching. Cesar Chavez was on a ‘water only’ fast. I didn’t realize that my friends at school had parents for whom this mattered. The President of the United States said he wasn’t a crook. I just thought the double peace sign was cool, so I copied it.

War in the Middle East. Nuclear weapon proliferation. My ten-year-old self said, “Blah. Blah. Blah.” I just hoped I got enough marbles in my chore jar (and didn’t lose any for punching one of my siblings), so I could watch “The Partridge Family” on a weeknight. I thought maybe when I got a little older I would have a chance with Laurie Partridge. She was so pretty. Because there was no way I had a chance with Marcia Brady. There were six kids, but she was the only one who mattered to me. She was way too popular at school. Out. Of. My. League.

Maybe my Mom and I had more in common than I thought when trying to keep track of what was real and what was fantasy beaming out of those four little channels. Don’t forget - you can go blind if you watch too closely or turn dumb if you watch too much of the boob tube.

Editorial and Advance Reader Contributors: Mark Wallace, Alisha Price, Heather Bergevin of Barrow Editing, Mette Ivie, Bonnie Wach, Francoise Boden, Mark Berg, Mike Hammer and Kathy Toelkes. Special thanks to Bill Davis for a kick in the pants that only a friend from your old stomping grounds can give you. Mt. Diablo and Apricot Tree painting by the talented and local artist, Greg Hart.