Three Channels and Childhood

I grew up when we had three network television channels and PBS. That was it. ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS if you wanted Sesame Street, Bob Ross, or educational programming that usually bored me to death as a kid. Saturday mornings were sacred because cartoons only existed at certain times. If you missed them, you missed them.

In the 1970s, Tuesday nights meant Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, while Fridays revolved around The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Back then, television stations actually signed off for the night with the national anthem before turning to white noise, but eventually beginning overnight broadcasting. Once that changed, Friday nights also brought shows like The Midnight Special, hosted by Wolfman Jack, featuring concerts and performances from artists like Tina Turner, which I still think should exist in some form today. And of course, Saturday nights belonged to Saturday Night Live.

When “Nothing to Watch” Meant Something Different

Now I have more entertainment available at my fingertips than I could have imagined in the 70’s and 80s, and somehow I still scroll endlessly through streaming services saying, “There’s nothing to watch.”

That contrast fascinates me.

The Return of Old Technology

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about nostalgia and how quickly the world changes. My daughter Jessica and son-in-law, Jake, recently dragged out my old white CRT television with the built-in VHS player — the same TV we used to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer on in the bedroom years ago when Jessica was little. Suddenly this outdated piece of junk I couldn’t quite throw away became something magical again. They cleaned it up and started watching old VHS tapes on it.

What’s funny is that VHS tapes, vinyl records, thrift stores, and retro furniture are all becoming fashionable again. Jake collects records. Jessica loves vintage aesthetics. Their generation is rediscovering things my generation abandoned. Meanwhile, I still have drawers full of cassette tapes and shelves of recorded VHS movies from HBO marathons in the 80s and 90s.

Why Old Media Feels Different

And those old tapes are time capsules.

When I checked some of them recently, I got distracted by the commercials more than the movies. Old fast-food ads. Bright neon graphics. Prices that now seem impossible. It wasn’t just nostalgia for the media — it was nostalgia for the atmosphere of an era.

That’s the strange thing about getting older. You don’t just remember events. You remember textures:

• the smell of my record collection
• the sound of a VHS ejecting
• the glow of a CRT television
• rewinding tapes
• mall culture
• old game shows
• the pace of life before the internet consumed everything

From VHS to Deepfakes

Meanwhile we now live in a world with 1000’s of streaming services and where AI can imitate human voices, generate fake videos, and possibly recreate dead relatives as digital simulations. That idea fascinates and unsettles me equally. Some people see comfort in it. Others see emotional danger. And honestly, I understand both reactions.

One minute I’m watching documentaries about ancient Egypt and Pompeii. The next I’m thinking about deepfakes, AI-generated humans, and whether we’re heading into a future where we can no longer trust our own eyes.

Looking Back to Understand the Future

Maybe that’s why archaeology fascinates me so much lately.

Ancient civilizations remind me that humanity has always existed in cycles of reinvention. Watching documentaries about Hatshepsut, Pompeii, the Moche civilization, or ancient Egyptian engineering makes me realize how much human beings have always experimented, adapted, created, destroyed, and reshaped the world around them.

The Problems Never Change

People thousands of years ago were still trying to solve impossible problems:

• how to carve granite
• how to preserve power
• how to explain the universe
• how to survive catastrophe
• how to leave something behind.

We’re still doing the same thing now — only with AI instead of obelisks.

Why My Brain Lives in Rabbit Holes

Sometimes I wonder if my brain jumps between subjects because the world changed too fast to stay in one lane. I fell into web design because it was practical and creative enough to hold my attention, but my curiosity never stopped branching outward:

• history
• television
• psychology
• technology
• nostalgia
• culture
• storytelling
• human behavior

Everything connects to everything else if you follow the threads long enough.

Living Between Two Worlds

And maybe that’s the real experience of growing up between Analog and AI: living long enough to watch the physical world slowly transform into a digital one while still remembering exactly what came before.