When Sweetheart and I go traveling, we look forward to spending a night or two in a hotel or motel. The reasons may not be what you think.
Yes, it is nice to go into a nice, clean room with all of the conveniences of home and not need to do any work to make it that way. We are basically insulated from the outside world, yet we can come and go as we please. We can rest and relax without anybody to disturb us.
All of those are good reasons for staying at a motel, but they're not why we like to stay there. It's because we can watch television without distraction. It's because we get to choose from more than 100 stations to watch something we like. Although, I don't know why that is important, because Sweetheart gets his entertainment by pushing the buttons on the remote and changing channels. We wouldn't be able to watch any programs if I didn't grab the clicker from time to time and pick one.
Since we don't have cable for our television at home, we are limited to only a few stations. Two of them are the basic, old standards and the rest are offshoots of those stations. Most of them offer a steady diet of reruns of programs that aired decades ago.
Well, at the motel, after flipping through the channels, we discover that there are very few programs that we care to watch. We usually end up watching reruns of programs that aired decades ago.
What we like about the reruns, especially the sitcoms, is that they did not try to proselytize us or indoctrinate us with theories about social issues we may, or may not, agree with.
I don't believe it is the purpose of screenwriters to determine how viewers should think about certain issues that affect us today. We have parents, family and church, along with our gifts of discernment, for that. There are enough instances and circumstances in people's lives to provide subject matter for sitcoms for years to come.
People are just people, regardless of their age, gender or ethnicity and the environment is what it is. Politics is a matter that needs to be dealt with.
When it comes to sitcoms, I would rather focus on our similarities than our differences. We can make our own choices about the other stuff. All we need is accurate information.
Dorothy is the author of two books—“Miles and Miracles” and “Getting It All Together “. You can purchase a book or send a comment by emailing her at dorothybutzknight@gmail.com