Photo of the week 14 of 39 -- Adolescence

This was not a particularly easy theme for me. First of all, I don't have any young people in my neighborhood. (Not that I really live in a "neighborhood" in this rural area. I can't even see my next door neighbors house.) I'd have to go to a mall or at least Wal-mart and take pictures of strangers to get shots of anything that an adolescent might be doing today. Both locations are places I try to avoid.



That got me to thinking about my own adolescence. I could have driven to Dallas to the neighborhood I grew up in and just taken location shots, but I thought it might make me very sad to see the changes that have been made to the old places. Besides that, it's over an hour away and I wasn't able to make it over there during any other visits near by recently. That's a lot of gas, time and money for one or two photographs.



Time to get creative! I thought more about my adolescence and the kinds of things I did, how things have changed from then to now -- that sort of thing. Of course I realized there were shows on TV that I watched then, that I still watch now. One of them -- "I Love Lucy" was an "oldie" even then because it stopped filming before I was born, another was "M*A*S*H" which first came on during my adolescence. They both are favorites of mine. I watch them whenever I get a chance. My daughter-in-law recently gave me the whole collection of "I Love Lucy" on DVD, but I still watch them on TV if I get the chance. The early "M*A*S*H" episodes with McLean Stevenson as Col. Henry Blake are my favorites. My favorite Lucy episode is the one where they first get to CA and she, Fred and Ethel go to the Brown Derby for lunch. William Holden is seated next to them. Lucy is a complete nuisance watching him. When they all decide to leave, she trips a waiter who dumps pie all over Mr. Holden! Later in the show, Ricky brings him home to meet Lucy. Lucy is trying to disguise her identity from William Holden and she accidentally lights her putty nose on fire! It is hilarious! Another favorite is when Ricky and Lucy are practicing the tango for a PTA show and she hides 3 dozen eggs in her shirt. During the dance ending, the eggs are smashed! I still laugh every time!

I can't remember when TV stations went to 24 hour viewing in Dallas. I remember them going off the air each night, playing the "Star Spangled Banner" and then showing the test pattern after they signed off. Never in my wildest dreams, as an adolescent, did I ever think we'd have so many TV watching options, with so many stations on all the time and be able to go out and purchase movies and TV shows on discs to watch in our homes whenever we want to! Amazing how far things have come .

Next week's theme is "chores".