The View from Thayne’s Corner

   Being old, retired and pretty much useless where physical labor is concerned, I have a tendency to watch too much television.

   Since my wife fails to appreciate the uplifting stimuli associated with viewing sports channel events most of the time, I’m often encouraged to watch other offerings less entertaining and informative.

   I find much of what is considered ‘reality’ neither entertaining nor informative.  We have enough of that between the time we rise of a morning and retire at night.  True entertainment, other than sports of course, is a little less real and much more imaginative.

   Today’s version of cops and robbers, however, may be the exception.  An occasional shot fired during the commission of a crime, or in self-defense, may rivet attention and heighten anxiety, but a 10-to-15 minute display of automatic numbing effect of too many burning cars and exploding buildings.  And the good guys never seem to bear any responsibility for causing much of the mayhem.

   So, sometimes I watch the weather channel in order to be informed and entertained.

   Now that’s ‘reality.’  There you can view real happenings that are much stranger than fiction.

   Last Monday morning, while anxiously trying to learn how many inches of much-needed rain we might expect, I saw an interview with a man struck by lightning during a thunderstorm while seated in an open shelter out of the rain.  He showed the jeans he was wearing when he took a shot in the zipper that blew a small hole in the seat of his pants.  It bent the zipper but didn’t even scorch the cloth.  He was unhurt.  You couldn’t create, with any credibility, such action in a sitcom.

   Now we have a show called ‘Big Love’ with which my wife becomes transfixed, about fictional families in Utah who practice polygamy.  The main character has three wives.  I watch it occasionally, but I’m forced to turn away on seeing the agony he experiences when faced with seemingly insurmountable problems.  It’s difficult to understand what goes on in the minds of such men.

   But, I guess that’s what you call true entertainment – things that stimulate human emotion, other than extensive property destruction and blood smeared bodies both dead and alive.

   Now sports, especially when watching a favorite team, can really stimulate emotion, with much less bloodshed even though the intent may be evident.  That’s also ‘reality!’