Christmas movies, TV format, and trading
This is the time of year when they start showing Christmas movies on TV. By the time Christmas gets here we’re all fizzled out. Our eyeballs start looking like test patterns, which by the way, you never see on TV anymore. I blame it on the Hallmark Channel; they keep bringing out new movies. We have to watch them to see if they’ve put a new twist to it. Of course they didn’t. It was the late 1960s when I first watched a movie called It’s a Wonderful Life on my little black and white TV at the apartment. It was an obscure film at that time. It was probably shown on just a few stations in the country. Over the years it’s become one of the most popular Christmas movies of all time. It became public domain and every TV station in the country was showing it several times during the holiday. Now I think they’re back to showing it just once. In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash — recognized the title of this book? It’s what the movie A Christmas Story was based on. They also call it, "The B-B gun story." They dated the movie as taking place in 1940 even though they used a 1946 fire truck in it. At least that’s what they tell me. There were a few other things that weren’t quite factual. The father, played by Darren McGavin, is my favorite character in the movie because he cussed out his Oldsmobile for freezing up. I’ve done that with a couple of Oldsmobiles we’ve had only for different reasons. The only Oldsmobile we bought brand new was a 1977 Delta 88, and it was a great car until the paint started flaking off. That’s when I started cussing. Olds did help pay for a new paint job. My grandfather was an Oldsmobile man, and ever since I’ve known him he bought Oldsmobiles. I never heard him cuss his cars out once. My father owned nothing but clunkers; and as far as I know, none of them were Oldsmobiles. Did he swear at his cars? I don’t know, but I must have got it somewhere. * * * We bought a new TV recently. It wasn’t our idea; we were satisfied with our old one (you get comfortable with things) but the trouble was it kept shutting off on us. Our new one is a long squatty thing with a LCD screen. No more picture tube. I thought our new one would be more in tune with today’s screen format. Wrong! We still get a letter box picture half the time. The other day the picture was the same proportion as our screen only smaller. We had a black border on all four sides. My question is, what the hell for? If I wanted a little picture, I would have bought a little TV! Fill the screen with a picture; that’s all I ask. * * * The Detroit Lions were blacked out again, so I went upstairs and brought my little TV down. I hooked it up to our non-directional antenna on the roof that looks like a flying saucer to those who made up a batch of eggnog earlier and added more than enough spirits to it. The reception reminded me of the old days, but the Lions didn’t. They (without fail) lost the game. I’m one step closer to being the new head coach. What have they got to lose? Remember, I’ll get one million dollars for every win and nothing for a loss. * * * If the economy keeps going to hell most of us will have two new words in our vocabulary. Bartering and trading. We’ll have to start raising chickens in a lean-to out behind the shed. We’ll feed them old stale peanuts or free range them. Maybe a little garbage once in a while if there is such a thing. The City doesn’t even have to know about it. The neighbors won’t turn us in because they’ll be doing the same thing. We can barter our labor, or we can trade our eggs downtown like they did in the old days. One thing about it, if we trade our eggs at the party store all anyone will get is high cholesterol; but the stuff they trade in return will knock you right on your butt. Happy Thanksgiving, folks. Until the next time . . .
