Which could you live without? TV or people? Survey says...

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It could have been any of one thousand small talk conversations I’ve had with my senile 84-year-old mother as we putzed around town. I asked her what she did the night before.

“I watched TV.”

Any plans for the rest of the day?

“I’ll watch TV.”

You really like watching TV, don’t you, Mom?

“Oh, I don’t know what I’d do without it. I have it on all the time.”

Her gushing affirmation made me decide to up the ante. I gave her what I thought was a softball question: 

What would she rather have: A life with no TV or a life with no people?

I guess I thought she’d immediately respond, oh, I couldn’t live without people, especially my family and you, my darling son, the one who sees to all my needs and brings so much warmth and joy to my days.

Wrong!

She actually paused and engaged in what for her was deep thought. I’d puzzled her. I wonder if in her dementia-addled mind she was thinking, “My son, Chris? Or Steve Harvey? Chris? Steve Harvey?”

Her consideration was long enough that it had the drama of a game show contestant playing chicken with the buzzer.

She finally said, “I need people in my life. I’d choose people over TV.”

She lies.

I know if push came to shove, she’d take TV.

Her dementia is such that she still lives independently, but with daily assists and visits from either Val or me. Yesterday at lunch she couldn’t recall she’d just an hour before been with me to church, but in at least one way her mind is sharp.

She’d be lost without TV and basic cable.

Who wouldn’t?

Be honest, at some point today someone you know is going to do or post on social media something that is going to make you absolutely hate people. And at some other point today you’re going to find yourself looking forward to watching something on TV.

It’s been that way since October 3, 1960.

I choose that obscure date after a conversation with a friend who was sharing with me his morning tread mill viewing habits. He said he watches the local news for sports and weather, maybe some stock updates.

No political bickering?

“I used to do that, but it was too upsetting. Now, I make sure I start every day off with a little visit to Mayberry.”

Ah, yes, “The Andy Griffith Show.” One of my all-time favorites. The offbeat characters are warm, engaging and in the end accepting of one another’s human short-comings.

I know, it’s so unrealistic.

Maybe that’s why it’s becoming so heirloom appealing. 

Who do you know who’s as kind and wise as Sheriff Taylor? He’s a real uplifting role model.

And when the scary headlines of each mounting hour come crashing into your brain, he’s right there on your DVR.

Just in the past few days, we enjoyed watching the “Walking Dead” season premier, “SNL,” “black-ish,” “Gravity Falls,” and various movies and sporting events. None of it was upsetting to my sunny disposition — and “Walking Dead” is about the zombie apocalypse!

Compare that to our daily dealings with our fellow man. Surly shoppers at the grocery store, rampant road ragers on the way home. Worse, the institutions designed to bring us together are tearing us apart. I’m looking right at you, Facebook.

Incivility, close-mindedness, petty hatreds — Facebook helps us mainline what reasonable humans used to keep at arm’s length.

Extended families offer little respite. They’re God’s way of proving we’re incapable of helping even the ones we love the very most.

Our oldest daughter has previously said she one day hopes to have a big family.

“What you really mean,” I corrected, “is you want to select who’s in your family.”

People or TV?

It’s a no-brainer — and please don’t take that as a subtle shot at beloved dementia patients.

TV is getting better and better while people are behaving worse and worse. That makes TV superior to people.

It’ll be like that until changing minds is as easy as changing channels.

Related …

When did Facebook become Hatebook?

TV-holics prepare for bender

The death of conversation & cell phone etiquette

“Breaking Bad” vs. “Sopranos:” and the winner is …

Growing nostalgic for when TV was stupid

When did Facebook become Hatebook?

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I wonder how many parents warn their children about the perils of social media malevolence and then take to social media to engage in perilously malevolent behavior.

They rant, they bully, they poison once-vital friendships.

When did Facebook become Hatebook?

Every one is looking to fight.

We live in an age that’d be a curse to anyone trying to make a living as a novelty mindreader. No thought is left unexpressed. We’re so plugged in it’s like we walk around with constantly updated cartoon thought balloons floating over our heads.

And feelings are getting hurt.

A sweet girl I know — and she’s a real babe — told me she was saddened the other day when out-of-the-blue a friend blocked her over mild political commentary.

“I went to comment on something she’d written and I saw she’d blocked me,” she said. “I wasn’t going to say anything mean. I just wanted to point out there’s two sides to every story. And she blocked me. I couldn’t believe it. I thought we were friends.”

Who was this reckless firebrand?

My wife!

Yes, we’re so divided even the mild-mannered Lutheran church organist must be censored.

I feel bad that anyone would do anything to make my sweetheart glum, but admit to feeling a bit more chipper knowing the frowny face for once didn’t have anything to do with her realization she’s married to me so at least there’s that.

I daily grow more and more nostalgic for the times when I didn’t know your politics and you didn’t know mine.

Heck, I’m daily growing more and more nostalgic for stupid cat videos.

The daily vitriol she sees among her friends — and Val doesn’t hang with the tattooed roller derby set —- is shocking. She says people who have to make nice at things like PTA meetings savage each other on-line.

I wonder how polite society will survive this election.

It amazes Val — me, too — how serene I’ve become throughout our most tumultuous election.

It’s odd, for sure. I used to be a fire-breathing partisan.

I’ve for years said the GOP hypocrisy of the Clinton impeachment trials turned me from a moderate into a knee-jerk liberal whose knee jerked most liberally whenever it was near a conservative’s crotch.

Oh, the fights I used to instigate. In hindsight, I’m probably lucky no one ever gave me a good ass-kicking.

I guess the reason I outgrew such agitating is because I realized the folly of the battle. I doubt I ever changed a single mind and it probably cost me a few friends.

So as I’ve matured — as much as any man who blogs above three bars can “mature” — the civilized world’s gone batty.

I know people who want to kill one another over yard signs. 

How about for the next two weeks everyone puts down the swords?

There are no minds left to change. It’s time to turn all our kettles off boil.

Don’t read so much. Don’t post so much. Watch a Muppets movie.

And don’t go blocking my darling on Facebook! You hurt her feelings and — who knows? — someday you might need her to play the organ at your kids’ wedding and she might stick you for the fee.

See, I’m no longer worried about America surviving the election.

I worry if Americans will survive one another. 

Related …

Let’s all America go to the movies!

My wild and wussy weekend

GOP loves Clinton 20 years too late

When Facebook becomes Fakebook

Election ’12: winners should jail losers

2,487

I revealed the snazzy new business card to Josie, 10, with all the flair of a Vegas magician removing a hippo from a hat.

What did she think?

“BOR-ing.”

I told her she’s confusing BOR-ing with ENIG-matic, and I’d have explained just what enigmatic meant if she hadn’t instinctively turned back to the hi-def broadcast of the Disney Channel that is everything my new cards are not.

I wonder if my daughter’s creative sensibilities would be more refined if I spent half as much time fathering as I devoted to the blog.

It’s pure speculation because I’ll not turn my back on the blog.

Unlike my offspring, the blog’s never said I'm boring, smell bad or embarrass it around its prissy blog friends.

If the blog could just run out and play catch with me, it’d be the son I never had.

Alas, it was only the second blog-related disappointment in so many days.

See, June was a milestone month for www.EightDaysToAmish.com.

Regular readers -- and your numbers are growing -- realize the blog output has dramatically increased.

I gauged from the enthusiasm I hear that readers would welcome more.

So starting in late May, I began producing more while maintaining the same rough format. The word count for each item is still about 650 words.

The difference between my blog and so much other internet content is I’m seeking readers who actually read.

I’ve never posted a video and the pictures are like postage stamps that may or may not illustrate what’s actually going on.

I see some very successful blogs that that simply post pictures of their dogs with clever captions.

If it were up to me, I’d petition the Greater Blog Counsel to revoke their blogging licenses.

Of all my writing enterprises, the one that pays the least -- this blog -- provides the most satisfaction. And now I’m becoming convinced this will be one of the breakout blogs that actually starts earning money.

I just don’t know when.

But the numbers are starting to impress.

I’ve noted before how unreliable the Google “stats” page is. There are often times when stats registers three distinct page views, but the stats audience section shows there are 10 readers in America, four in Denmark and two in Iran.

Iran! Can you believe it?

It’s true. I have a small but steady constituency of readers in Iran.

I can only dream one of them is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and that one day he institutes sweeping liberal reforms and says he was moved to do so by the wisdoms he read at www.EightDaysToAmish.com.

I have to think that would move the meter.

But that’s just one reason why June was such an interesting month.

As you can see to the right, stats tallies the number of page views since 10/10/10 (I opted for calendar cool to commence the tally).

What you can’t see is the page views are broken down into all-time, monthly, daily and current categories.

It tells me that January had 1,718 page views. The number was approached but not exceeded throughout 2011.

Until June.

June page views smashed that number at about Day 20. As the month wound down, I aspired to a nice, round number: 2,500.

On the morning of June 29, I needed just 79 page views.

For a blog that had been averaging 85 a day and with two lively topics on deck, it seemed a cinch.

It was not to be. The next two days I became like the guest of honor at a surprise party no one bothered to attend.

Was it the holiday? Topic selection? Had my evil daughter used Facebook to poison my readership?

I don’t know. But as the clock ticked down on June, my page views for the month froze at 2,487.

It seemed to me as if the great Roberto Clemente had gone on his 1972 mercy mission and greater glory with 2,999 career hits.

My ludicrous analogies make up in color for what my black and white business cards lack.

I vow it won’t happen again.

I’m going to do something that goes against the ethos of a blog deliberately named to hearken plain living.

I’m going to start promoting.

I have 1,000 new business cards. If you’re a fan of the blog and are so disposed, please e-mail me (storyteller@chrisrodell.com) and I’ll send you a score or so you can distribute to like-minded friends who might enjoy these musings.

I’ll be grateful.

And if the blog ever starts earning real money I’ll send you something snazzier than an envelope full of the world’s most BOR-ring business cards.*

* Offer applies to all general readers and clerical leaders of repressive fundamentalist Middle Eastern nations that begin with the letter “I.”

In praise of Facebook. Seriously

Is it time to take the guy who said prolonged internet usage would lead to social isolation and beat him virtually senseless with the combined weight of our Facebook friends lists?

Thanks to Facebook I’m hearing near daily from people whom I thought were dead. None yet who I’d hoped were dead, but that could happen.

I was one of those who scoffed at the social networking site, but now I admit I’m enjoying my daily dabblings.

See, I work under Gitmo-like conditions. It’s just me and a cruel tormentor. It’s endless isolation in a cell-like room where I’m beaten up by an angry bully who constantly shouts I’m a worthless failure.

Sure, that man’s in my head, but that doesn’t make the torture any less painful.

I was checking out Facebook the other day when the great Steely Dan song, “My Old School” came on the radio. I’ve heard it thousands of times and, like many great songs, am still unable to decipher what the hell it’s all about.

I know the gist is conveyed in the line, “And I’m never going back to my old school.”

Clearly, Mr. Dan or who ever the enigmatic guys behind the just-a-tad-too-pretentious band weren’t Facebooking when they did the ditty (and I apologize if that last vaguely sexual sounding phrase got you momentarily worked up).

I’m going back to my old school every single time I’m on Facebook. And I don’t mean Ohio University. I don’t even mean (and talk about pretentious) Mt. Lebanon Senior High School.

Mt. Lebanon is a tony area of Pittsburgh where I was raised. Our struggling father moved us to the relatively affordable section of town -- just a 5-iron from Dormont! -- in the mistaken belief it would ensure we’d get a good education.

Poor guy. He never could accept you can lead a horse to water but you can’t teach it algebra.

Having said that, my old school is Julia Ward Howe Elementary, named after the ardent feminist, abolitionist, pacifist, and I’m guessing one hell of a party gal. Howe composed “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

To me, her namesake school was the Battleground of the Six-Year Spitball War. It’s where I became an irredeemable goof ball. I’ve been tickled to hear from a score of some of the earliest a and most uncomplicated friendships I’ve ever enjoyed.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve reflexively avoided many reunion gigs while maintaining the key friendships I’ve nurtured from those years. For instance, I’m still close to friends I met in second grade when we all got in trouble for seeing who could eat the most paste.

Facebook eliminates all the awkwardness of running into the people I didn’t like. It’s like a reunion with just us cool folks.

I hear from so many old friends at the Nashville Banner that, I swear, on Friday afternoons I think I should start checking to see which of the old gang is hosting the weekend blow out.

For me the best part has been hearing from people who tell me how much precocious fun I was back before I started sneaking beers in, oh, I think about fifth grade.

All my college buddies say I’m fun, but I don’t recall ever drawing a single sober breath with any of them. That taints their judgments.

So when a girl I’ve known since first grade looked me up and invited me to a party to watch the Penguins play one recent Saturday afternoon, I was happy to accept for reasons that had nothing to do with hockey.

We spent a couple of hours talking about the old days, who was prospering, who was lost and all the human wreckage that accumulates from three decades of relentless living. I met her husband, her five kids and failed to get her to prove she didn’t have more tattoos than offspring.

She told me so many nice things about myself that I walked away just so pleased with the kind of kid I was and hopeful that foundation meant something about the man I became.

Thanks, Nancy.

I guess I’m like a lot of people in that I always focuse on the flaws. Who knows? Maybe there are squads of angry Facebook subscribers who think we were a bunch of jerks. Happily, they don’t get in touch to assure us that’s the case.

Or maybe, just maybe, we weren’t as bad as we thought we were.

Either way, it makes for some dandy rhetorical ammo to use when the guards in our mental Gitmos start screaming we were never any good.