People of a certain age (like me, approaching 70) can be just as guilty of “screen addiction” as our much younger counterparts. While fewer of us are addicted to computers and smartphones, many of us, having grown up as TV idiots, are still addicted to the Boob Tube.

Unlike my wife, who grew up in a TV-free household (her university professor father thought, wisely, it would crowd out reading time), my family had the TV on all the time. Thus, I was introduced to, and seduced by, such timeless gems as Mr. Ed, My Mother the Car, Batman, Superman, The Andy Griffith Show, The Munsters and The Man from Uncle – to name only a few favorites. A cut above, I also feasted on Star Trek, Get Smart, Twilight Zone, The Addams Family and Laugh-In.

TV time beat out reading and homework time, every time. And yet I still managed to do well on intelligence tests, graduated college with decent grades, and had a successful career as a communications professional. Either I had enough brain cells to overcome my early TV exposure or there was some unrecognized quality about junk TV that boosted my academic and professional skills. My wife can quote long passages of Longfellow poetry; I can sing the entire opening theme to the Beverly Hillbillies. Who is to say which accomplishments have been more valuable to our lives’ success?

Problem is, I still watch a lot of TV. Admittedly, my choice of programming has vastly improved (PBS, BookTV, History Channel, cable and network news, Turner Classic Movies, college and professional football), at least for the most part.

I still have a weakness for boxing matches and mixed martial art tournaments, my excuse being “I want to see what really works on the street.” I also like to take in the occasional action flick, especially if it stars Jason Statham, and the commercials don’t wear me down. My otherwise highly intellectual wife, the one who quotes Longfellow and does impossibly hard logic puzzles, watches endless cooking competitions and home renovation shows, and is a sucker for just about every sappy rom-com broadcast on the Lifetime channel. Her favorites involve marriageable foreign princes with suspect accents and lovelorn (but plucky) American ingenues. Guilty pleasures, we respond guiltily. Pass the popcorn.

So I guess it’s not fair to scold our screen-obsessed youth, cell phones in hand, tablets in backpacks, laptops in cars, desktops at home. My generation hasn’t exactly been a sterling role model in this regard. We act like we’re too befuddled to understand today’s technology, but we’re often mindless slaves to yesterday’s technology. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?

I do pay a price though for my youthful indiscretions. An avid morning walker, I sometimes get earworms. You know, those annoying songs or jingles that get into your head and you can’t get out. The worst ones are phantoms from my childhood TV viewing, embedded in the dark crevices of my cranium. I’m walking along, happily listening to bird songs, humming a tune from the Beatles’ White Album, and then BAM!, I’m suddenly moving in head-swaying cadence to:

“A horse is a horse, of course, of course / And no one can talk to a horse, of course / That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed”

Is this my karma? Haunted by inane TV shows the rest of my life? You bet your sweet bippy!

Steven Price is a Kennebunkport resident. He can be reached at sprice1953@gmail.com.

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