I have a few music videos recorded from Hit Video USA, which was channel 41 on Cable Alabama when we moved to the Huntsville area when I was 15 years old.
Hit Video USA has a place in my heart forever, because it’s emblematic of just how small-town my upbringing had been to date. I thought our cable lineup right after we moved was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. You mean these channels go up to 70-something? In Anniston, our top channel number was 22. You got to channels 14 through 22 by putting the TV on channel 3, then pushing a mechanical button on a separate converter box. Remote control? Pish-tosh.
What else? I couldn’t believe we had such a great mall just down the road. I thought the Olive Garden was beyond amazing. Hey, look—an actual Porsche dealership. Remember Carriage Motors at Drake and the Parkway?
I remember stopping in there shortly after I got my driver’s license, hoping to score some sales literature with large, high-quality photos. Realizing that a kid in jeans in a ten-year-old Celica wouldn’t look like a serious prospect, my story was that a friend of mine had just come into some money, and I was out researching new cars for him. (Perfect! What could go wrong?) The salesman was polite, and actually did give me a little tri-fold brochure. I think I still have it somewhere.
I’ll probably never be particularly well-traveled, which means that through some lenses, I’ll never be well-rounded. That’s fine. Those who would make such judgments are often the same folks who would instantly write me off for my deep love of Alabama anyway.
I think I do all right most of the time. But in August 1986, there was a bit more “hayseed come to the big city” about me than I’d have cared to admit.
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I was thinking on the drive home tonight about an old friend. (Well, maybe she’s “someone I used to …
I think when people say “travel” makes you well rounded, what they really mean is “meeting people with different perspectives”. Thanks to the internet, you can now do that from the comfort of your couch. What I think travel gives you is a chance to really experience those perspectives, to try new foods and cultural practices and understand things on a level beyond just the glossy pictures. Sadly, I don’t know how much of that most people get in the standard vacation which is a week or two at best. That said, I’m also not particularly well traveled, living across the country from family and friends means your vacations tend to be to well worn spots.
I value placidity greatly on vacation. We really love Gulf Shores, but part of why is that we’ve been enough that it’s familiar, in a way that enables us to disengage more fully from working our brains.
As you say, not exactly a new experience mindset.
We didn’t have MTV or Hit Video USA, so I occasionally got to stay up late and watch Friday Night Videos on NBC. I fondly remember watching ZZ Top and Police.
Ooh, and Night Tracks. Did you have WTBS?
Yes, back when it was WTCG. I remember Bill Tush doing the late news with a German shepherd wearing a tie. Need to find a pic of that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy8MTBxP7no
Rex appears around 1:36.
Miria, this blog will celebrate its eight-year anniversary next month, and this is the first mention of Bill Tush. Thank you for that! 🙂