Powerful Images

*A summer re-write.


I’m old enough to remember my family’s first television set.
My childhood family that is. I was about 6 years old when Dad bought our first TV. Before that, like everybody else, we had only radio. This was, of course, back in the day. Way back.

We were one of the first families on our block to have a TV.
I remember the excitement of my little brothers and our young friends as we all waited outside our house, sitting on the grass on the front lawn. We watched carefully for my dad’s blue Ford to turn the corner onto our street.
Finally we spotted him. He had a huge box containing the console TV crammed into the trunk. It was tied down with ropes to secure it.
Neighbors came to help install the antenna and then carry our prize into the family room where it took the place of honor right up front next to the fireplace.
My mom placed her loveliest lace doily and plant on top of the dark mahogany box with the green screen. Dad turned the set on, and our lives were changed forever.

Then, of course, as everyone’s house began to have a place of honor for the big box with the green screen, all of our lives were changed forever.

Television, movies, videos, DVD’s, record and replay. What mixed thoughts come to mind when I consider the part they now play in our lives.
I’ve seen the surface of the moon thanks to TV. From my own home I've been to the Antarctic and the Amazon, seen the inner workings of a beating heart, and observed life at the bottom of the oceans. I've met presidents and prophets, heard symphonies and hoedowns, climbed to the top of Mount Everest and hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. All vicariously of course.
I've even heard the Savior's apostles teach eternal truths. Live, in real time, during Conference. When in actuality they stood in the Tabernacle hundreds of miles away.
All these things were good…. some were incredible…. some were eternally important, and they enriched my life.
On the other hand, even though I try not to watch an excessive amount of TV, I’ve wasted more hours than I’d care to count on senseless, mindless, sometimes even soulless drivel.
TV sitcoms, game shows, reruns of reruns, commercials, questionable comedy, and late night talk shows have been a part of my life. And even violence, cruelty, and immorality disguised as funny, modern, and desirable.
I’m ashamed to say I’ve seen them all.
I think I may have to account for the time I spent watching this kind of thing someday, and I’m not looking forward to having to explain it, I can tell you.

This is one of the great moral challenges of the last days I think…. choosing carefully how we spend our time. In days long gone there wasn’t much choice, people spent their time surviving.

One thing may help us and that’s to understand the great power of visual media.

I remember clearly a Saturday when I was a 12 year old girl, going to the movies with my best friend on a sunny afternoon.
Back then we took the bus downtown to the big ornate theater with floating clouds on the ceiling and red velvet curtains that folded up over the screen just as the movie started.
There were only three theaters in town back then. Neighborhood multi-plexes wouldn't come along for years.
On this Saturday the place was filled with kids our age. It was a double feature. Two movies for the price of one. Both were scary, horror type movies, not ones my best friend and I usually would choose. But all our school classmates were there.
By today’s standards both of these films could be shown, uncut, on the Saturday morning cartoon shows. Both would probably be rated PG.
One was called “Black Sunday," I think, and was set in medieval times. Its opening credits featured an execution. An iron mask with spikes on the inside was hammered into a man’s face, killing him instantly. I don't remember anything else about that film.
The other film was called something like, “The Man Who Couldn’t Die.” The star was a character who was unable to experience any disease or injury throughout his entire life, due to some magic spell cast on him.
The last scenes show the spell breaking and the pains of a lifetime happening all at once as he ascended a staircase in a vain attempt to run away.

Well, it’s been well over 50 years since I saw those images.
They have no use or value to me whatsoever.
In fact, I would give a great deal of money if I could get them out of my head right now.
Yet, despite my heartfelt wishes, I have those pictures in my brain….. taking up space……disturbing, useless, unimportant, very powerful….waiting to steal my peace of mind at the most inopportune times and places.
For all those years.
Nothing I can do will erase them.
I put them inside my brain when I was a young girl and here they are in the head of an old lady.
Very powerful…. the visual media.

We’d be wise to choose carefully.