I Could Hear The TV From Outside

I could hear our old tube TV turn on from across the house, even when I was outside. It made this very high-pitched whine, almost like a mosquito. I grew up in the ’90s, and that sound was enough to send me running to see what was on.

My dad grew up watching TV for three to five hours every day after school. He’s seen every episode of Star Trek. Growing up, he put the TV on a lot for us, too. We didn’t have cable, but I was so tuned in to the television that I didn’t need to see the screen to know it was on.

One night, my parents tried to watch Schindler’s List. They didn’t want us watching because it was too much for kids. But I knew the TV was on, and I couldn’t sleep. I’d try to sneak out of my room and stand in the doorway, looking down the hall, asking my dad what he was watching. He’d tell me to go to bed.

I didn’t even know what was playing. The fact that the television was on was enough to pull me out of bed.

That memory is part of why I care about screens in a home. When I think about where a television belongs, I think about that hallway. For me, its presence reached well beyond the room it was in.