Trying To Walk In Beauty

One of my most treasured memories was watching TV on top of the hill with my cousins as the grown-ups visited and talked behind us. This was during the time of no satellite tv, just a tv with an antennae. My uncle would come driving up in his truck with his wife and his kids. We would all pile into the back of his truck and he would drive us up the hill near our house. He would open up the hood to his truck so he could hook the tv cords up to his truck battery. He would then dig a hole to put the long antennae in which he was attached to the tiny television. At which point, he would turn the antennae until he got a picture screen on the tv, no matter how snowy and visible the picture was. My cousins and I would all huddle up to the teeny tiny snowy tv show while the grown-ups talked and visited behind us. By the time, it was time to go home, my uncle had to disassemble the antennae, unhook the battery from the tv, load them back up into his truck and we would head back down to our house.

Those were the best times, spending time with my family, my cousins and my uncle and my aunt. The hills near our house hold the best memories. At the time, it didn’t seemed all that ridiculous, but as I explained this to my children years later, it sounded so out of this world to them and to me. I couldn’t help but laugh. All I can say was, we had to do with what we had at the time, which was very little, but the actions held such deep meaning.