artwheelermusic.com

Several years ago when my youngest daughter was still little, she was playing one day in our kitchen.  As she walked around the kitchen table, she would assign a gender to each chair.  She would say, “This is a boy chair, this is a girl chair, this is a girl chair, this is a boy chair” and so on.  The gender of the chairs seemed to be totally random because it didn’t alternate for every chair and there wasn’t a boy chair for every girl chair. Nor did it seem to have anything to do with the gender of the person that usually in that position around the table.  I took an interest in her game and then I asked her this question: Do you know how to tell the difference between the boy chairs and the girl chairs?  She didn’t have an answer for me.  I had an answer for her.  If you want to know the answer that I gave her, send me an email at art@artwheelermusic.net.

Several years ago, we used a satellite service for television. When we first subscribed to this service, we were unable to get our local channels.  I wasn’t interested in dealing with all of the processes that were necessary to get network feeds from New York and Los Angeles.  We had no antenna and lived far enough away from any city where we might be able to pick up any networks so we went without for about 3 years.   The only network we could get was ABC but we were far enough out of town that it didn’t come in very clear.  At the time, our children were very young and their interests dictated a lot of what we watched.  We didn’t feel that we were missing that much on network TV.  This was at the same time that Survivor was starting out and was a big hit.  It didn’t sound like anything that would appeal to me.  It was a rare occasion when I really missed having the networks.   Finally, the satellite TV provider started offering local channels and we were eligible to receive the ones from Memphis.  We immediately added them to our package.  It was at the first of the year when the NFL playoffs are on every weekend.  I didn’t realize how much I had missed professional football.  The first Sunday after we added the networks to our satellite package, I came home after church, turned on a game on TV and went to sleep on the couch.  I hadn’t napped that good in 3 years. 

When I was growing up and had an opportunity to go any place where you played games to win tickets that could be redeemed for prizes, I always dreamed of having enough tickets at the end of the day to get one of the prizes on the top shelf.  These included basketballs, lava lamps and the largest stuffed animals ever made.  I don’t think Chucky Cheese was around when I was little and I never went to one until my children were born and old enough to be interested.