When I was a kid, I loved to make crazy faces. I think I learned it from watching the late, great Red Skelton. Skelton, as well as Don Knotts and Jerry Lewis, were masters of facial comedy. When I demonstrated my own version of facial comedy, Mama always told me if I didn’t quit, my face was going to freeze that way. If you were also a face maker, you probably heard the same thing. Recently, during the current battle of the television-streaming wars, I squinted at college football games on a 4-inch screen all day long. The next day, when people at church began asking what was wrong with my eyes, I was afraid Mama’s warning had finally come to pass and I my face had frozen in a permanent squint! I had two perfectly good televisions but could not watch the games I wanted to watch on them. You probably know why.
Round one of the fight happened two years ago. Disney went to war with DIRECTV over the channels owned by Disney. That included all the ESPN sports channels and ABC. I could have stayed with DIRECTV and simply found something other than college football to watch. If we were talking ice hockey that might have been realistic, but college football? That’s a big negatory! I jumped ship to YouTube TV and guess what. Well, you probably already know. I said, “Well, maybe they will reach an agreement before Saturday.” I’m not sure which Saturday! Anyway, I found a way to watch the games, but I almost went blind doing so. I watched them on my 4-inch screen (turned sideways) cell phone.
In my mind, I was transported back to an earlier, simpler time. The first television Jean and I bought, during our broke-but-much-in-love early years of marriage, wasn’t much larger than that phone. It was a Panasonic with a 9-inch screen that showed only black-and-white pictures. The sports announcers had to announce the colors the teams were wearing. That television was so small we just picked it up and carried it with us wherever we went. In fact, I think I finally carried it to the attic…where it still resides. Back in those days, there was no such thing as ESPN. If someone had said they had ESPN, we probably would have thought they believed they could read minds. We only got college football games on Saturdays and they were only on one network. The NFL was televised on Sundays with one bonus game each week on the newly created Monday Night Football on ABC. That was the extent of televised football watching for each week, except on Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
Now, I have a couple of televisions that are about the size of the drive-in theater screens that we used to watch. These days, I have to pay to watch my own screens…even though they are in my own house! I can’t even slip in through the hedges or hide in the trunk. I can, however, watch more football games in one Saturday than I probably could watch all season long back then. Every Saturday now is about like bowl season…unless “they” say it isn’t!
I guess I’ll be switching again. I guess I’ll be paying more money again, too. What was it the book of James says about the love of money? It may be the root of our not getting what we’ve already paid for, too. It all makes me want to make an ugly face…and pray I don’t freeze that way!
Bill King can be reached at bkpreach@yahoo.com or 334-728-5514 (office).
