The other evening, I was watching television before my pre-bedtime nap. I don’t remember what I was watching, but I do know it wasn’t making me sleepy fast enough. So, I started looking for the TV remote. Once again, my precious wife had hidden it. I asked her what she had done with it. She looked a little incredulous (that’s not the first time I had seen that look) and said it was right there on the ottoman. I never cease to be amazed at how she can hide things right out in the open like that.

As I was staring at the TV remote, trying to think of what I wanted to watch next, it dawned on me. We somehow have access to multiple sources of countless TV shows. We Ligons are actually streaming our television. We still only watch about five different channels, but by golly, we are streaming countless more.

Then it dawned on me. It wasn’t that long ago that we had cable TV. I’m not sure where it went. But it was gone, and we were streaming. As amazing as that cable technology was, it required us to have three different remote controls. And that required a child to decipher which remote did what. But we still only watched about five different channels on cable.

As I stood there contemplating that remote control, I thought back to my childhood days. Yes, we had TV back then. There wasn’t as much TV, but we had it.

South of Wewoka, where I grew up, we could usually get three Oklahoma City channels, 4, 5 and 9. We could almost always get channel 10 out of Ada. And if the weather was just right, we could sometimes squeeze in channel 8 from Tulsa. For those of you who are counting, that’s five channels, which is the same number we watched with cable, and that we are watching with streamed TV—or streaming TV, or whatever you call it.

Back in the good ol’ days, we had a TV antenna which consisted of a metal pole attached to the corner of the porch and an antenna on top. Watching different channels in different parts of the state usually required someone (like me) to go out on the porch and turn the antenna until it was just right and the picture was as clear as possible. That wasn’t the best technology. I was 24 years old before I realized it wasn’t snowing on every episode of Gilligan’s Island.

Actually, going out on the front porch to turn the antenna wasn’t a bad deal. Until, of course, my dad wanted me to go outside and adjust the antenna during a thunderstorm. My dad was smart. He knew that metal pole and antenna could attract lightning. And I am sure he knew if I had a hold of the pole when lightning struck, I would be shocked. But I guess he decided he would play the odds for a good picture during Gunsmoke. I heard a rumor that was why Chester limped. He had been struck by lightning when he was turning the antenna for his dad.

Using all of my intellectual prowess I remembered if there wasn’t a ground to complete the circuit, you couldn’t be shocked. It was an “aha moment.” I decided that next time it stormed and dad told me to go turn the antenna, I would make sure I wasn’t grounded. I would approach the antenna pole, I would jump as high into the air as I could, and while I was airborne, I would grab the pole and turn it. Since I would be in the air and therefore, not touching the ground, I couldn’t be electrocuted. I just had to turn loose of the pole before my feet touched ground.

What I didn’t anticipate was without my feet on the ground, I didn’t have enough torque to turn the pole. So, when I jumped up and grabbed the pole, it just sort of spun me out into the yard where I immediately got soaking wet and muddy. I had to go dripping back into the house where Matt Dillon was just sort of a ghost on the TV. My dad was upset because I didn’t turn the antenna and my mom was upset because I was making a mess in the house. I just stood there thinking: surely somebody could create something where you didn’t have to go outside every time you wanted to change channels. But I didn’t have the remotest idea what that would be…