Tony Brewer

I can remember a time when all television was free.  You didn’t need anything more than an antenna on the roof with a motorized rotor and you got all the channels you could possibly want – the three national networks and PBS.  Who needed anything more than that?  Then cable television came to town, touting the benefits of being able to watch television without having to watch any commercials! 

I didn’t know anyone who bought into cable then – who in their right mind would pay for television when they could get it for free?  Now it seems that everyone I know is paying for television in one form or the other.  Either a satellite service like Direct TV, or a cable company.  When we first moved into this house, there was a regular antenna on the roof, and we tried it out, but the reception was really bad.  We couldn’t get much more than snow and sound!

So, we asked our neighbors what television service they used, and we were surprised how evenly split they were – some recommending the Direct T V service, and some recommending the cable company.  The people who recommended the DirectTV were the people who were heavily interested in sports and movies.

What about your neighborhood?  What do your neighbors use?

I was just looking at a MSN article on the Internet about Do’s and Don’ts at the beach. One of the “Do” items encouraged women to wear white bikinis on the beach if they were lined. That brought back memories of a funny story that my mother told me about when she was about sixteen years old and engaged to a minister. She was visiting his family at the beach (I don’t know what beach) and for some reason she was wearing a white bathing suit. She went into the water to go swimming, and when she came out of the water her beau’s mother freaked out and ran to her, covering her up with a towel. Her white swimsuit had become transparent and wasn’t hiding anything at all! Of course, she was mortified at the time, but laughs about it now!