Screen Shots

As a child in the Fifties, I was a big fan of television. Although our TV had a small black-and-white screen, it offered a wealth of kids' shows, cartoons, and family-friendly entertainment. Saturday mornings were the best, as we could look forward to kid entertainment until noon. I was often up at 6:00, watching old Krazy Kat silent cartoons until the good stuff came on, like Tom Terrific.

From 1953 until 1957, my favorite show was Winky Dink and You, the "first interactive TV show," according to none other than Bill Gates. If you were lucky enough to have a Winky Dink Kit, which consisted of a piece of vinyl plastic and a set of "special" crayons, you could help Winky Dink, a cartoon character with plaid pants, star-shaped hair, and very large eyes, solve mysteries. With the vinyl plastic attached to the TV screen via static electricity, you could connect the dots that Winky Dink provided, using your special crayons, and allow a picture to emerge, the answer to the mystery problem.

Want to make a guess as to how many kids, lacking the official Winky Dink Kit, just drew on the TV screen with their 8-pack of Crayola Crayons? And yes, I was one of them. I think the Winky Dink Kit cost fifty cents, clearly not in our budget.

Today, I replaced the 23-year-old window screens in my condo and had some time to think about screens. Now, I am not trying to put up a smoke screen to draw your attention away from the politics of the day, but screens can possibly provide a respite from the malaise in which we find ourselves. Close your eyes for a minute and imagine an old wooden screen door closing. You know, like maybe one at the entrance to the soda fountain where you could sit at the counter and enjoy a cherry coke or a milkshake. Or maybe one that was on a cabin at Girl Scout camp. I still have a wooden screen door on my log home up north, and hearing that door close behind me when I come in from the garden is one of my favorite sounds.

And then there's the Silver Screen, a reference to old-style Hollywood movies. You know, before they became full of violence and kinky sex and lots and lots of evil. Bogie and Bacall stuff. I would still rather watch Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird than the latest thriller. But hey, I may be hyper-sensitive. I'm still struggling to get over 1972's Deliverance. I probably never will. (Please, do not tell me that you hear banjos.)

A screen is "something that shelters, protects, or hides." And those three words just reek of our outrage over the recent school shooting which claimed 17 lives. How do we shelter and protect our kids? Where can they hide? Background checks for gun purchases, a simple screening of those who want to collect weapons, is a no-brainer. And yet, if my research is correct, only nine states have such a requirement in place. This is just crazy.

Well, for a few brief moments, I was a kid again, happily drawing on my TV screen to help Winky Dink and his dog Woofer solve a mystery. How to solve the mystery of America's gun obsession requires more than a Winky Dink Kit. It requires persistence and courage and VOTING. I want the NRA out of our politics.

Screen out.