Mumbo said...
Vince - I’ve been to Montana and there are some TV’s there to watch baseball on. You must have been sleeping when they were on.
Tim G said...
Vince--Surveys show that older Americans on average watch about 7 hours of TV daily. How do you manage to occupy the 7 hours while the rest of us watch TV?
Fair questions, I guess.
As for baseball, or any other sports, I have zero interest in watching them. I understand why others do but for me they just do not hold my interest. And I say that as a very active runner, involved with putting on local races, and as someone who coached high school cross country for a decade. Yet, I have never watched runners on TV and couldn't tell you who the world's top runners are.
And then there is the question of TV. I have been asked that question many times in the past, "If you don't watch TV what do you do?" as if there is nothing other than TV to occupy our lives or that there is some kind of mandate that we must watch.
The answer is simple. I have LOTS of hobbies, interests, and passions that provide me the opportunity for a fully engaged and active life. "Active" is the operative word. Passive activities, like watching someone else do something just isn't my thing. To be specific, here are some of the things that I regularly engage in:
- The aforementioned running.
- Woodworking.
- Working on my vintage foreign cars.
- Computer programming for fun.
- Writing/journaling.
- Making art, which includes that I am about
3/4 of the way to a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the local university, something completely different from what I pursued in the past but fully engaging me in retirement.
- Photography. I've been doing this for 40-some years. I have a fully functional darkroom and am still working in film. Lately I've been passing on the tradition to my 16-year old neighbor who loves it.
- Audio and magnetic recording. I have a slew of reel-to-reel machines and 8-tracks decks which I restore/repair and many hundreds of tapes. I've been digitizing everything I have on tape and placing them on a web server running on my home network with software I wrote that handles searching, play lists, etc.
- Old time radio. While I have quite a few of the old, tube radios, I am more interested in the shows themselves and have been collecting/exchanging since the early 1970s.
- Musical instruments. While my level of proficiency is variable, I still try to play my guitars a couple times a week, bang out something on the piano, and try to re-learn the uke.
- Sewing. I bought an industrial machine some years ago and taught myself how to sew. Initially it was for doing automotive interiors for all my cars but I have done clothing, furniture upholstery, boat and car covers, and, lately, masks.
- Baking. I'm a pretty passionate about
artisan bread.
- Reading. Some fiction. Lots of non-fiction. Lately lots of art history and criticism.
- Then there are the home improvement projects, working on my rental property, meeting up with friends over a craft beer, family, etc.
With all of that to do, all of which I enjoy, the opportunity cost of exchanging any of that for sitting in front of the TV is, for me, too high.