Turn it off
By BILL DUNCAN
The View from Here
"Television is chewing gum for the eyes." Although origin of the quote is controversial I believe I have enough substantial evidence to say it was first said by Frank Lloyd Wright. Regardless of who said it, I must say I have to agree.
I have decided to turn the TV off and to solve my nightly viewing addiction by watching video and DVD movies. Even so I have to carefully select what I view as I have discovered I can no longer trust the ratings, not even those that say PG13. That means a rather small viewing selection.
I no longer have young children at home, but if I did I would probably be considered a certified prude. The sex, violence and raw language that has infiltraded the television and movie industry is scandalous. I pity the parents of young children today and certainly believe like Dr. Todd Huffman, an outspoken pediatrician in Springfield, Ore. who frequently contributes to Op-Ed newspaper pages, "that it is time parents retook the TV remote."
Or even better, follow Ellen Currey-Wilson’s advice in her book "The Big Turnoff: Confessions of a TV-addicted mom trying to raise a TV-free kid." She advocates just turn it off. In this electronic era that is easier said that done, but you can follow my advice by selecting appropriate videos and DVDs to watch together as a family.
Lately, I discovered a series from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, that ran on Canada television for weeks on end called "Wind At My Back." It is available on DVD. The series has a solid plot, excellent acting and is reminiscent of what television in the United States once was, good clean entertainment.
The story takes place in a small Canadian mining town during the 1930s Great Depression that affected not only the United States but our neighbors to the north. I am currently on series number 18.
The series is based on three books written by a brilliant Canadian writer named Max Braithwaite, author of dozens of books about the Canadian Prairies, including "Never Sleep Three to the Bed," "The Night We Stole the Mountie’s Car," and "Why Shoot the Teacher." Parts of all these books and probably more that Braithwaite wrote, are incorporated in the television series.
Braithwaite died of kidney problems at age 83 in 1995. Braithwaite’s most memorable work, "Why Shoot the Teacher," was part of a trilogy about teaching in Saskatchewan during the Depression. He taught in a one-room schoolhouse in rural Saskatchewan for seven years during the hard years of the Depression.
Although he said later that this teaching experience gave him the material he later wrote about, in an interview he explained that "I felt like I was in the wrong place and soon discovered I was a writer, not a teacher, and I figured life’s too short to do something you don’t like in a place you don’t want to be."
Interestingly, a key character in "Wind at my Back" is a teacher named Max Sutton, who also is a struggling writer. There is also a young boy in the story named Hub, a name he probably took from his older brother, Hub Braithwaite.
What I found so interesting about the series, is the resiliency of the people during such hard times. The struggles in Canada were the same as in the United States.
In another book about the American Depression era, I read that during that period Amrican women wore hats as a formal dress and noted that this relatively inexpensive frill helped them feel good about themselves. Watching this series from Canada you can’t help notice the millinery of that day. Since I am a product of the Depression, I too, remember my mother would not go out of the house, not even to the grocery store, without hat and gloves.
Despite the extremely difficult times, it would appear that we were a bit more cultured then, even if we didn’t have money. Sure wish some of that culture would return to our TV screen, or better yet to our society in general.
(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470)