Newscoma

As I woke up at 2:45 this morning, as I sometimes do, realizing that I thought I had beat my cold back down into the trenches and then waking up in a puddle of snot, I did what any person would do when they are drowning.

I just got up.

The dogs (all three of them) decided they were hungry and needed to eat something because God forbid they hadn’t eaten in about, oh I don’t know, three hours so off I went in search of kibble.

Why am I telling you this at (let me check the clock) 4:30 a.m?

Because sometimes, in the middle of the night when all that remains in the darkness is a lit laptop screen and a befuddled mind, you find wonderful things on the innertubes.

I’m not a baby boomer. I’m that lost generation that doesn’t really have a name that came after the boomers and before Generation X, Y and Z (that’s next, I’m assuming.)  So sometimes I just haunt the internet looking for things to amuse me in the middle of the night until Star Trek comes on at 5 a.m.

Yeah, I got a schedule. You got a problem with that?

So, I go over to Ken Levine’s blog because I like it and he linked to a blog that has entertained me all throughout these early morning hours.

Lloyd Thaxton’s blog rocks. If you don’t know who Lloyd Thaxton is, you whippersnappers, then go here and it will be explained. Or at least alluded to as I am linking to Wikipedia. Thaxton reminisces about television in the ’60’s (and man, does he have some tales to tell), comments on why Britney Spears is a “bad-mouther” because there is beauty in lip-synching and some political stuff but mainly it’s about the celebrities of the past.

When I was growing up, we had four television channels (of course, my father, Big Daddy, would say “We didn’t have a TV and I walked 35 miles in the snow so shut your trap, kid.” Not really, but sorta).

After school, Homer (the sis) and I had a schedule of watching Gilligan’s Island, The Beverly Hillibillies, I recall Hogans Heroes coming on for awhile before I learned about the sordid past of Bob Crane and then our version of “Dance Party” (actually, I can’t remember the exact name other than it was filmed in Paducah). And, by God, we were to watch Days of Our Lives if we were at my grandmother’s house.

Ahh, Macdonald Carey’s voice at the beginning of each show became a staple in our lives. I also recall watching some soap called “The Doctors” as well. And Barnabas on Dark Shadows.

I haven’t seen a soap in years, but Barnabas was bad ass.

When we got cable, man, the world changed. I go back to not being an official “boomer” and not being part of any of the other generations with cool names because I was at the end of one phase and then in the beginning of new ones but not quite IN either one.

So, yeah, television for me is nostalgic. And reading Thaxton’s blog (just a little free one like mine is which also makes me smile that he’s giving these memories and recollections away for nothing) I remembered those afternoons when I was a kid. When I would dance to the television set, when I thought working at a television station like Mary Tyler Moore did would be the grooviest thing ever and how I wanted to do the weather like Ted Baxter and that I did, indeed, want to marry Steve McQueen.

I guess I need to go yell at some kids to get off my lawn now. (Hint: Getting older can be more than alright. You just have to get the hang of it, that’s all.)