This old house...
In August of this year, my daughter Megan asked me to pick up a boxed set of a certain television series that had just released its first season on DVD. Since I am not a huge fan of anyone spending a lot of time in front of the tube, I made a mental note of her comment, and really tried not to forget. On the afternoon of her birthday, on the 23rd, I went racing into the local Best Buy (another of my personal favorites), and strolled the racks of boxed sets, frantically searching for her request. Thinking that it might possibly be sold out, I tracked down the nearest "sales associate", a young woman of dubious drinking age, who asked what I was looking for. I told her I thought it was a TV series titled "Home", she looked at me, broke out in a huge grin, and asked me if it might be "House" that I was looking for?
She had me....no...not at hello, but for her ability to interpret my completely unfocused request and turn it into a success. She promptly walked me over to the "New Release" section, snagged the last copy of the first season off of the shelf, and turned me into hero from hound dog in a matter of seconds. My take on Best Buy, or at least the people that they have floating the sea of isles, changed significantly that afternoon. I walked towards the quarter mile long checkout line, and began to read the jacket of the set I was about to spend fifty dollars on. DVD sets were something I was used to purchasing. I had refused to have cable television in my home, so it was rarely turned on, except to watch something from start to finish without commercial interruption. As a consequence, the collection of VHS, Beta, and DVD movies in my home had expanded over the years, and the newest purchase looked intriguing. It was another entry into the medical series that seem to be a mainstay on all networks.
If you are old enough to remember shows like Dr. Killdare, Marcus Welby, and others that predate Starbucks, the genre has continued and proliferated. The biggest difference is that they have gotten a lot smarter. House is no exception to the rule. Hugh Laurie and the cast of this program have single handedly educated their viewers in the procedure of differential diagnosis. There is death, and dying, not from special effects explosions, or six thousand rounds per minute, but from those maladies that we are all going to face as we continue to age. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and, with each episode, the really unique diagnosis that stumps the band until the final scene. It is a tightly written series, that walks away from the usual story line, and shows doctors and practtiioners as the fallible, human, faced with tough choices, doing the job they were trained for sort of men and women we know they really are. I applauded Megan for her choice, and watched the first two episodes with her after she unwrapped the gift. It gave me renewed confidence in my choice not to have cable TV available, as it had narrowed viewing choices to ones that were attractive, and not just merely "available".
The irony of it all? That the overall health of the American public has deteriorated as they spend countless hours watching smart programs about the physical ailments they are destined to acquire while they avoid the fresh air, sunshine, and bounty of health promoting activities that wait for them in the great outdoors.
Here's to your health,
Ray
