television, "back then"

I grew up with a television constantly going in the house, and my relationships to the characters who appeared daily in the shows that I watched as a child were probably as formative for me as my interactions with siblings, classmates, my mother and father.

My parents often retreated to their bedroom when they saw that I was comfortably situated on the sofa in front of the TV, starting from my toddler years well into my teenaged ones. On the sofa, I watched Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Care Bears, The Smurfs, He-Man and She-Ra, The Transformers, Rainbow Brite, you name it. But some of the shows that stuck with me most were the ones that were investigative, that asked questions of the characters and their captive audience. Does anyone remember Square One TV? Or the mathematic detective work of Kate Monday and George Frankly in Mathnet? What about the team of word-hungry kids solving mysteries on Ghostwriter?

I loved these shows. I remember trying to hone the ability to communicate with Ghostwriter in invisible ink, pen hanging around my neck, as our parents before us tried to summon "the force" à la Luke Skywalker and his light saber.

Reading about the show now, I realize that "Mathnet" and "Ghostwriter" were much more than the half-hour programs I'd rush home to watch after school over a bowl of Chef Boyardee. They were shows that taught us to use numbers and words and letters to improve ourselves and the world around us (Kate and George always carried scratch pads around, and Ghostwriter never failed to suggest that his team consult the dictionary for clues). The shows presented ethnically diverse worlds full of tough adults and curious kids who were NOT ostracized for their desire to learn or solve crimes.

So while I have in the past been ashamed of the fact that I watched so much TV as a kid -- and hardly read any books, which is funny to the folks who know me -- I don't feel that way anymore. I am proud to say that I watched these shows, and that I still love them, in my own way; I am proud that I still utter, "Negative, Ghostwriter," when I have nothing to offer my coworkers and proud that sometimes they know exactly what I'm referencing. I do wish that my friends' children had this kind of television to watch, though to be fair, I'm not sure what there is in the way of children's programming today. I have to believe that the reality television barrage has got to stop, and the public television will come back again to reclaim its once glorious throne as a good influence on impressionable, but curious minds.