Back in Time for Winter Reflections

Saturday, February 22, 2020

     "Back in Time for Winter, Reflections" is the seventh, summary episode of the CBC series that has a Sudbury family spend one episode in each of the 1940s-1990s, in their house refurnished for the decade.  Their clothes, food, housework, and recreation vary according to stereotypes of each decade.  The tv mom does all or most of the housework until the 1990s episode.  The power goes off in the 1990s, a implicit criticism of privatized power systems that replaced the dependable public power systems of earlier decades.  During the rare times our rural neighborhood's power went off during my 1960s-70s childhood, our lifestyle didn't change much because many of our appliances used natural gas, not electricity:  the stove, dryer, furnace, and hot water heater.  I remember a neighboring family eating with us during those times because they had an electric stove.
     Today is March 8, many days after something interrupted this draft before I could post it on this blog.  I forgot about this draft until I put that International Women's Day post on my blog tonight.  I don't remember all that I wanted to mention about this tv series.  I do remember the tv children saying that the episodes before digital electronics included family activities that were more social and less individual than they were accustomed to in this digital era.  They liked those antique activities.  I grew up with them, but I like email, word processors, and the internet.  I don't miss typewriter correction tape and whiteout.  I like but rarely write or receive letters, but I'm glad I have many from past years.  The internet doesn't reduce our recall, which Socrates said that writing would do; it makes us think differently.  People still know lots; the wise don't pretend they know all. 
     I'll end here and return to real life, which is genuinely social, unlike social media, which is misnamed.