TV is too easy: a social experiment

My two sports-addicted sons and the Househunters International-addicted I went without television for—GASP!—one entire week. I’d hoped that with all of that non-boob tube time, we’d:

• Invent a real time machine once and for all. I’d ask my great grandmother Iva what happened back there in Lovelock, Nevada. Ahem, see previous blog.
• Find a cure for obesity. I’d resume my love affair with apple fritters and Merlot. Ahem, see many previous blogs.
• Rid the land of the Kardashians. I’d single-handedly drive them into lives of quiet desperation. Ahem, I pray I never resort to a blog about them.

I had to broker a deal with the boys so as this social experiment would take place between Super Bowl and March Madness. Luckily for me, it was a week when Flip This House was on hiatus.

Days one and two were a breeze. We read, did homework, and I listened to a 12-step inspired CD. You’re good enough. You’re smart enough. And gosh darn it people like you!

Days three and four became the age of avoidance. I went to a movie, and my eldest son, the one most willing to embrace gray areas, watched The Office on his laptop. I didn’t consider a movie theater a violation. I had to get dressed, drive, walk and communicate with humans. Things not necessary while TV watching. My son argued that if it’s not a television screen, it’s within the spirit of the experiment.

Days five and six found me absently reaching for the remote. I itched to sink into my chair and press the “All On” button. I itched to go into a Househunters coma. I itched to mindlessly allow the sweet narcotic of cable programming rock me into an altered state.

Day seven, I awoke. My fever broken, I was relieved to be temporarily free of the heebie-jeebies.

Day eight was a return to our version of normalcy: Sports Center and HGTV in moderation.

What did we learn from this social experiment? They’ll get our television when they pry it from our gnarled, remote-clutching hands.

Iva Was a Bad Girl

Below is the beginning of a fictionalized account of my great-grandmother, Iva. Please humor me while I share some family history.

If you ask Amelia, it started with Silas. He was a little older by about six years. On an upward march toward becoming a U.S. Army officer, Silas was hard-working and focused. More importantly, he was a well-kept and well-groomed sober young man who recognized that a wife and family provided the kind of stability the Army favored.

If you ask Silas, it started with Amelia. Compared to most demure ladies of the Victorian Era, she was outspoken and held a desire to learn. Amelia completed the sixth grade, a fact she liked to pull out and wave around like a kid with a toffee apple when it suited her. At 18, she’d just reached the age when Father worried she’d become one of those much-to-be pitied Spinsters of her day.

Silas was stationed at Fort Brady near Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan. He’d served with honor in the Civil War, and reenlisted with the idea of making the military his career. The discipline suited him just fine. “Better than farming,” he liked to repeat.

Amelia waited for a fitting husband, and Silas fit her just fine. Like her father, Silas had served in the Civil War, a connection she appreciated.

At any rate, the two married in 1867. She was 18, and he was 24. If it wasn’t the ideal marriage, it certainly wasn’t the first time a bride or groom wed out of practicality and under a cloud of lowered expectations.

The facts of what transpired will never be known now, even if they were in 1870. There are no diaries, no biographies, no Facebook accounts or YouTube video postings. Left behind are only the sketchiest of family trees, verbal suppositions and imagination.

Here’s what we do know. Silas Webster McNeil, a U.S. Army officer married Zephra Amelia Coleman, and they had at least one child.

This child, my great-grandmother Iva Elizabeth, is the subject of our story today.

To be continued . . .