Earlier this week, our television went out.

Rather, our satellite service went out because of a glitch somewhere in the system that leads four our satellite dish to the receiver in our home. It will be out until Sunday when a tech can come fix it.

The situation has brought back some memories.

When we moved to Vicksburg almost six years ago, we put off subscribing to cable or a satellite provider to save money. We spent the time without TV watching movies from our collection of tapes and DVDs and from the Warren County Library’s vast collection. We saw some movies we’d never seen before, and I got to feed my addiction for Inspectors Morse and Lewis, two British detective series I enjoy watching.

And we learned we could get through the day without viewing the tube.

I finished several books, including the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy for the fifth time and began reading and learning about the Union and Confederate navies during the Civil War, an education that helped me better understand the importance of the Mississippi River.

My wife was able to work on some craft projects she had put off for a while. Our daughter worked on projects and lessons for her clown ministry and children’s Sunday school class at her church.

The only conflict I had with no TV was watching LSU football on the tube, but that was resolved through the generosity of a neighbor, who graciously invited me to watch the games at his home during the two seasons we went without TV.

So when we lost signal the other day, we didn’t panic, we didn’t whine and cry, we just adapted and went back to the practices of two years ago. And since we’ve added to our movie collection since the last time we went without TV, we have a while new assortment of movies and documentaries to watch. As far as missing football, we now have Internet service and I can watch games (not just LSU) through the miracle of streaming, which allows me to watch the games live either on my computer or my Smart phone. I have a new book to read.

I can’t speak for my wife and daughter, but in a way I’m glad the TV is off for a few days. In many ways, I needed a break from the so-called reality shows, which I’ve often said just show how far someone will go to get money, the comedies, which I really don’t find funny, and political beauty pageants called “debates.” I also dislike the monotonous playing of commercials where you have to guess at the product being sold, although I’ve always enjoyed the AFLAC and the recent BMW ads.

Sunday evening, our reception problem, hopefully, will be resolved and the programs will be beaming from large black box sitting on a dresser in our living room. The images will reappear and we’ll be addicted to the tube once again.

 

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John Surratt is a staff writer with The Vicksburg Post. You can contact him at john.surratt@vicksburgpost.com.