Death and Television

Parent: “Do you remember our neighbor, Barb Johnson?”

Me:       “Of course. How is Mrs. Johnson these days?”

Parent: “She died”   
 

And while it shouldn’t be a surprise that Mrs. Johnson or any other neighbor has died because most of them had blue hair in the early 80’s, I always find it troubling. 
 

So, although I’m accustomed to hearing about deaths from my parents, I still found the conversation we had the other day a bit odd. It went like this:  
 

Mom: “Do you remember James Ward?”

Me:    “Um, do you mean the “Bread and Circuses” guy from Channel 7?”

Mom: “Yes.”

Me:    “Yes.”

Mom: “He died.”  
 

With all of the deaths that have been reported recently (Norm Van Lier, Johnny “Red” Kerr, Paul Harvey), one might wonder why my mom would go out of her way to alert me to the former ABC7 food critic’s death. Well, I can explain: 
 

When my parents came to this country, they turned on Channel 7 and they have never switched. So, they have become very familiar with the various anchors and reporters that have given them the news over the years. As you can imagine, my mom has been the one to alert me about the deaths of various ABC7 personalities, including Floyd Kalber and John Drury. And I’m sure she’ll be the first to call when Joel Daly finally kicks the bucket. So while hearing about the death of a food critic was a new one, even for my mom, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. 
 

Since my parents have stuck with the same channel all these years, they haven’t alerted me to the deaths of other local news anchors. For instance, my mom probably has no clue that Randy Salerno is no longer with us. I had thought that in recent years, they might have branched out to other networks for news and programming, but that hasn’t quite happened. This was made evident to me when my mom asked what I thought about Dan Ponce leaving Channel 7 to live his dream of being an A capella singer. 
 

And it’s not just the news. They rarely even change the channel for prime time programs. I found out the hard way that my dad is still an ABC guy for most prime time programs by having a rather uncomfortable conversation with him about The Bachelor "After the Final Rose” special the other night. Sure, as host Chris Harrison said, “America was floored” by what went on, but I don’t want to be talking to my dad about how Jason dropped Molly and picked Melissa, but then six weeks later, he was saying it didn’t work out and now he wants to be back with Molly. 
 

My mom has at least branched out to other networks to watch Bulls games. But sadly, she didn’t start watching until Tim Floyd came aboard and therefore, missed the entire “Michael Jordan” era. Now, she goes over to my aunt’s house to watch every game and will frequently pepper conversations with things like, “I think Tyrus Thomas will be something special.” But since she’s German, it sounds more like “I zink Tyrus Thomas vill be somesing special.” Ah, ze Deutch, what a beautiful language. 
 

Over the years, I’ve tried saying various things to entice my parents to watch different networks for news coverage. I’ve said things like, “Dad, you have to watch Channel 5. They have a DJ doing the weather and he shows pictures of mushrooms! And they sometimes have a sports guy who can’t get through a broadcast without accidentally uttering the ‘C’ word!” Or I will say to my mom, “You have to watch Channel 2 because they have a guy doing sports who speaks exclusively in puns!” Or, “Guess what, Mom? Yesterday on Channel 9, Tom Skilling did a 17 minute weather forecast! Can you believe it?” 
 

But, alas, my parents are loyal to Channel 7 and I have proven to have no influence over the news they choose to watch. And I suppose I don’t really care about what shows they watch, but Dancing with the Stars is about to start, and I don’t feel like reliving it again with my parents on Tuesday.