Lights Out!

Since I'm backtracking here to get up to date, I've decided to post some things I've written about going off the electric grid, T.V. and HEAT. Seems a fitting end to the Summer, especially since it's 88 degrees and humid today.

Came home from work today and reached for the T.V. remote to catch up on the news and the T.V. didn't go on. Neither did the lights or the fan. Then it dawned on me that I hadn't paid the electric company any money, in a long time.

O.K. not to panic; I go to bed early anyhow. Wow, it's quiet... very quiet.

When I first came to the little house, I spent time here before moving in. I toyed then with the idea of not having a T.V. Please know that I am a star member of the T.V. generation. Addicted, you might say. I remember my family's first T.V.. Funny how old childhood memories work. I don't remember the exact arrival of our T.V.; you would think I would; but I remember all of a sudden there was a T.V. in the parlor. It had a round screen and it was brown. I also don't remember what we did with ourselves before it arrived. I do remember listening to General Hospital on the radio in the kitchen at lunchtime.

We lived in the country although we weren't country people. We were transplanted from the city. I am a reader but I don't remember my folks reading much beyond the evening newspaper and maybe a Readers Digest condensed book. My Mother and Grandmother did a lot of handwork. Lots of sewing. My Father had a dog boarding business and raised Cocker Spaniels for show. That was in addition to his regular job in the city. So I guess everyone kept pretty busy.

I was born in 1949. A real dividing time, after the war and on the verge of the modern age. Being in the country, we had a crank telephone with a party line. But that was soon replaced with the 50 lb. Rotary Phone. My Mom got her own car eventually so she could drive back into the city she had left, to shop. Phonographs became Stereos and it just kept going.

I got off on a tangent there. What I was getting at was , once T.V. hit, life was different. I watched every day after school. American Bandstand, soap operas, General Hospital- now I could see them. Then all the night time sitcoms. Cartoons and football on the weekends. T.V. became the mainstay of American Life.

Times were so much simpler; our tastes so much less sophisticated. We were easy to entertain. People who have grown up on T.V. can plot their lives by the programing. My daughter is named Jessica after Jessica Brewer, head nurse of General Hospital. An original liberated woman.

I always said I would never pay to watch T.V. and I haven't. It amazes me what people can be conned into paying for because they have been sold a bill of goods. Have you noticed as the cost has gone up and up there is less and less worth watching? I can't find anything to watch at night and the news shows have become so inane I can't bare it. So can I do an experiment here and unplug? I'm always saying my biggest dream is to be off the grid. Don't pay your bill and you too can be off the grid.