We Need More Lerts--Be Alert!

Yes, we all know that I am a geezer and a curmudgeon.  Because of that I confess my sin of self-righteousness.  But, by jingo, there are some things that this geezer sees that are observations of the world around us.

I remember those days when television was in its infancy.  Call me uppity but in northeast Wisconsin we had 3 channels.  Watching the “Noon Show” was very important for farmers with the latest market reports and the entertainment of the little combo that would play live music.  Local news at supper time was sacrosanct.  The weather report by Bobby Nelson required reverent silence.  The sports segment concluded with Big Al Sampson pouring a glass of Schlitz beer into a glass so that it would foam to perfection.  That impressed this kid whose family never had a bottle of beer in the house.

During college years students had to decide if they would eat supper before or after the evening news.  Of course, those were the “war years.”  I don’t remember if it was Vietnam or the War of 1812; it was a while ago.  There were fist fights in the library over the newspapers.

Technology has since expanded.  I do not need to enumerate the myriad ways to communicate from when I depended on jungle drums as a lad.  Despite the instantaneous communication I posit that we have a different perspective.  Where there was once a period that people were excited about getting information and anticipated the next release of news, our society is blasé.  There are way more options at 5:30 p.m. than watching the network news.   At 5:30 p.m. we now give our attention to a sports channel, an oldies channel, the cooking channels, ad nauseum.  In other words, we have narrowed our focus to those things that satisfy and interest us (emphasis on "us").  As a result I think we have limited our Weltanschauung (I love to flaunt my German vocabulary).  Weltanschauung means our vision of the world.  We have lost our global perspective and I think that is sad.  Has instant global communication become so commonplace that we have lost excitement about what is happening in the world?  Have we lost the sense of what is exotic?  Have we become arrogant in how we relate to the world?

I love my computer and I love my smart phone and I love my expanded cable.  But I also love the smell of ink on newsprint as I spread a newspaper across the kitchen table.  I love hearing a local radio newscaster stumble over the names of foreign diplomats and then read the local news.  I love receiving a first-class letter from someone I know that I can read again and again.

There was once a bumper sticker that said, “We Need More Lerts—Be Alert!”  That would be what I am preaching:  expand the vision, see what’s going on in the world.