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garner, grandma H, and pops
Been watching “The Rockford Files”. We watched all the “Columbo” we could get, and re-watched them, and had to move on. I remember how much my dad liked that Columbo was on before the Rockford Files on summer breaks from school. He would spend most of the early afternoon watching the old re-runs of TV shows from the 60s and 70s. It seemed to make him happy.
My dad was able to go on SSDI when I was in about 8th or 9th grade because of his MS. So, in the summer, we would sit around watching TV shows a lot. His health prevented him from doing too much, most of the time. Whenever he did push himself to do anything, he would usually fall down, get hurt, or just make himself more sick. Pretty much still his situation today, except his MS has progressed for the last 28 years or so.
While my husband and I are watching Rockford, it brings up memories I'd forgotten. Like how my Grandma H. really liked James Garner. She preferred the TV show “Maverick”, but that was just more of her generation I suppose. She said once that Garner was very handsome. I guess so, in a generic male model TV actor kind of way, he was. I don't usually think about my Grandma. Not much to think about someone who is dead. Life is for the living. That's about all you can do.
We all lived with my grandma in her house until she died of cancer. All 7 of us in a two bedroom house, plus whatever pets were around (and there was always at least one). Now, it's just my mom and dad living there. My mom sleeps in the room she grew up in. I really think that is bad for her mental health, but trying to convince her to move her bedroom to the main floor would be a waste of breath, and I think re-arranging that house would LITERALLY take about ten years off her life. She'd flip out and die.
Anyway. I remember I never liked Rockford Files when I was younger. I really didn't like anything from the 1970s. It creeped me out. For some reason, it all made me think something bad was going to happen. Maybe it's just because I was a baby in the 70s. I remember things I don't remember that I remember.
I think young people often don't like older pop culture references, because they lack the knowledge of history, and have very little personal life experience. Now, I like the show just fine. I find most things from the 70s kind of quaint. A little odd. Like, was life really like that? Very different from modern life, that's for sure. It's nice to see shows where no one has a cell phone. People sure did look different back then. Not just the fashion, but the actual people. They ate more real food. There were less chemicals to spread all over your body. And I don't think plastic surgery was as common back then, even for Hollywood types.
So my dead Grandma H. liked James Garner, and my handicapped dad enjoyed all those old cop/ robber shows from the 70s, and my husband just watches Rockford Files with me to humor me, I think. He's indifferent to it, like he is to pretty much any entertainment.
I don't blame him. He has no memories of people in his life to connect to any shows at all, since he spent most of his childhood in the backs of trucks or in tents on a beach or living in horse sheds. There's no TV in any of those places.
I had a stable middle class childhood, just with warped hippie values. My husband had the warped hippie values, but zero stability and a welfare class hurdle. But, we're both fucked in the head and sit around watching old 70s TV shows while we eat.
On the computer. Sitting on the floor. Because we don't have a TV.
1:55 PM - Wednesday, May. 10, 2017
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