When I was a kid, and I or my brother or sister would get sick, our mom always dropped everything and took care of us. We’d usually spend a day or two on the couch, where mom would bring us all sorts of herbal teas, feed us massive amounts of vitamins, and let us watch whatever we wanted on television. Before VCRs, when I was sick, I’d watch game shows until ten, then whatever was on PBS (usually Electric Company or Zoom) until noon, then Twilight Zone until one. After that, TV pretty much sucked for the next two hours, so I’d read a book or take a nap, depending on how lousy I felt. After we got our first family VCR — a top-loading monster with digital numbers and woodgrain accents that weighed about 70 pounds — I would spend the day watching Star Wars (taped from ONTV) over and over again.
Without fail, when the illness passed, Mom would get sick the very next day. I remember thinking that it was like she’d used all her energy taking care of us, and when she realized we were fine, she didn’t have anything left to take care of herself. For the next few days, Mom would take my place on the couch, but she watched soaps instead of Star Wars — I never understood that.
This is, of course, a long-winded way of saying that as Nolan got better yesterday, I noticed a scratchiness in my throat that turned into burning in my sinuses by late yesterday afternoon. I’m not coughing, yet, but boy do I feel like shit.
Looks like I’ll spend today watching Star Wars on DVD.
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I hear that. My girlfriend is one of five children in her family. When one of them gets sick, it’s usually a couple months until the illness has finished its rounds through the family and everyone’s immune systems has caught up.
Well, shoot. Blessed are the caretakers. Mojo coming atcha’ Wil.
Ah, the Electric Company… good times. I was always a fan of 3-2-1 Contact too.
I used to get ear infections when I was little… at least once or twice a year at the minimum. My mom would let me watch tv upstairs in their bedroom. I hated getting ear drops, so I would get a present. My mom had a box of little wrapped presents… plastic zoo animals, a bag of M&M’s, crayons, etc. Each present had a string attached to it. After my ear drops, I could pick one string and I could pull my present out of the box.
Hope you feel better soon Wil!
Ugh, I remember sick-day tv. I used to like watching alot of the stuff on PBS- the odd, funky 1970’s kid science shows, electric company etc.
The afternoons usually really sucked- “That Girl”, “McHale’s Navy”, “Gomer Pyle USMC”, “Green Acres”, “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father”. Blech! Had to wait until the later afternoon when the kids programming finally came back on.
I do remember watching Monty Haul’s Lets Make a Deal & The Price is Right. Price is Right isn’t too bad, but when you are kid, no so good.
-Dan
… tonight I think I’ll walk alone, I’ll find my soul as I go home. ^_^
Love that song, Wil.
sorry to hear that, wil. everyone’s coughing and all scratchy throated here at work, too.
hope it passes before han can collect his reward . . . .
🙂
peace,
enderFP
ohp! new order!
yeah being cared for by your mother/father when you are sick is definately a highlight of child hood.
Me too…I had forgotten about the Electric Company, I also watched the Magic Garden.
I watched games shows or old sitcoms like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, the Patty Duke Show, I Love Lucy, Honeymooners and Gilligans Island then slept or read, but if my brother or sister were home too we would play a board game, cards or with the lite-brite. My mom always made the couch the coziest place when I was sick, she would have everything I might need right there on the TV tray and brought lots of ginger ale and soup…its funny that we were never allowed soda any other time except when we were sick and then only ginger ale.
Feel better Wil!
“Looks like I’ll spend today watching Star Wars on DVD.”
Tell me, Wil, were you able to use some sort of celebrity connections to get a DVD version of the original, Unspecial Edition Trilogy? Or must you watch the altered version of the films like the rest of us? I’m going to assume the latter is true, since I read somewhere on The Internets that Lucas actually destroyed his original movies in creating the Special Edition. I hear the DVD was altered from the Special Edition, and that Han and Greedo shoot at the same time now. Heh… why can’t he just leave it alone?
Get better Mojo, Wil. Drink lots of water, take extra Vit C and echineaca, and get better soon.
Your pre-VCR sick day TV schedule takes me back. It is exactly what I would watch. When my parents got a VCR, my sci-fi flick obsession was the long version of Dune (taped off broadcast TV, of course!). Good times.
There are worse ways to spend a sick day, I suppose. I’ve had some of that recently, both after I injured my leg and after I had the surgery to get the tendons hooked back up to my kneecap properly. Of course, I had a laptop computer and an Ethernet cable that plugged into our home network and our cable modem. (Yes, we have wireless, too, but the card won’t work on the laptop because I can’t find a working driver for Fedora Core 2 with the 2.6 kernel.) Oh, and did I mention the Xbox? So I didn’t really have to resort to daytime TV, or even DVDs. But I do have the Star Wars DVD set, should I feel in the mood for that.(Yes, mraymer, in the DVD, Greedo and Han shoot nearly simultaneously, but Greedo still shoots first by a teeny fraction of a second. Lucas also altered the last part of Jedi to have Hayden Christensen show up as a ghostly Anakin Skywalker alongside Ben and Yoda.)
My daughter was down Friday night and all of Saturday with some sort of stomach flu. I took care of her that day since The Wife and The Boy had stuff they needed to do. The Boy came home from school puking yesterday. He’s now doing better, but The Wife has it this morning. I’m now home from work, trying to do some work and taking care of the three of them. Guess who’s next?
Star Wars was always my “Sick Day” or feel good movie. Even if I just had a lousy day and wanted to curl up in bed and dis-asscociate for the rest of the day, Star wars Was always there for me. So I completely understand. I am glad I have the dvds now as my taped versions were starting to wear thin.
Ahhh, our first VCR was a big Magnavox top loading monster as well. But we didn’t get ONTV, so I couldn’t make a tape of Star Wars for myself. The best I could do was to make audiocassettes of the stereo radio simulcast. Remember when they did that on KMET or KLOS?
Enjoy your day with your SW DVD’s. Don’t forget to supplement them with the Clone Wars cartoons! They’re great fun. 😀 Feel better soon!
Enjoy Star Wars and get to feeling better soon!
Feel better, Wil.
When I was young and sick, my grandmother would always take care of me. My prescription was The Price is Right, Let’s Make a Deal reruns (I’m too young to have seen the originals) and, my favorite, Press Your Luck.
Here’s wishing you no whammies!
–T
When I was sick as a kid I’d watch The Price is Right in the morning and The Next Gen all day. It always made me feel better. Go figure 😉
All the best, Wil.
Yay for the PBS lineup. I loved that when I was a kid. Of course, when I got older, it was TNG & TNG reruns on channel 43.
Now that I’m the mom, I’m the one who does the hovering.
So, what you want to get yourself for that scratchy throat (great actor/singer trick if you must go on stage & your throat’s a wreck) you’ll want to get some herbal tea with “slippery elm bark” in it. It’ll take care of that right away. There’s a brand-name one Traditional Medicinals, variety Throat Coat. It comes in a couple flavors. Getting actual slippery elm bark itself and making a tea from it has a texture somewhat like Pepto-Bismol, so be warned.
Feel better, Wil.
I hope you feel better, Wil.
Lots of good healing mojo going out your way.
Two words:
Gravol
Suppository
These and other “remedies” taint my sick-days-as-a-kid memories. Made me never want to fake a sick do though, that’s for sure. “Come here, drop your pajama bottoms, and bend over.” . . .
*shudder*
I’m glad you have better memories, Wil.
Feel better soon, Wil. That wierd sinus/throat thing is going around, even here in Mississippi.
One of my readers turned me on to your site…I really am enjoying reading your previous posts and I will give u a link up on my site.
No worries the cold thing will pass…a lot of my patients have come in with the same symptoms as well.
Again I am really impressed with the posts I have read so far…u now have another daily reader.
Phil
San Diego,CA
Wil, I know how you feel. My kids have been sick, and today I woke up with a sore throat and other symptoms. It seems to be going around here in Louisiana as well. Looks like a lot of us will be relaxing today, getting plenty of rest, and drinking lots of fluids. Take care and get well soon!
I hope you feel better soon. I’ve had the bad cold last week with the runny nose and this week having fun keeping my voice while paging people at work – it sucks! Have lots of soup for me! I don’t have the job which pays me if I take sick days so I’m here infecting everyone else.
Hey There Wil! I as well hope you feel better, but think your choice of “sick” entertainment may infact make you sicker, he he he. Just my opinion. But being that you have dabbled in other “universes” youself, you may find it right up your alley. Regarding the “sickness superhighway”…..I have one of those myself. I have a neice and nephew that visit often, and if one of them gets sick, one by one we all go down. Totally sucks doesn’t it? Just be glad you don’t live in GA as I do. The pollen alone will totally kill your sinuses. Ick!!!!! 🙂
Sorry that you’re feeling under the weather. I remember the days when I would stay home from school. I had bad asthma as a kid and would spend many days on the couch. I’d usually watch cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Magilla Gorilla (remember him?) or whatever else was on in the morning. This was back in the early 70’s and the original Star Trek was getting popular in syndication. It would be on three times a day on different channels, and all different episodes, so I would watch them in the afternoon. I must confess, I played hookey more than a few times just to watch those shows.
Sprite. Dry Toast. Ny-Quil. It is the medicine of “our people”.
It also works.
Ah, the joys of taking care of someone, then having them give you their illness as a warm heartfelt “thanks”….
I’m just glad germs aren’t transmittable via blog. lol 😉 Just teasing. Hope you’ll feel better Wil!
Have some neo-citran (or a stiff drink, really! alcohol kills germs, you know! haha) and get some rest!
I may be the last one to realize this…
It occurs to me again and again that while for me Star Trek and Star Wars are similar familiar indulgences, you probably don’t get the exquisite pleasure of being able to love 9 hours of straight ST:TNG like so many of the rest of us do. That kinda sucks for you. I mean, you get the increda cool thing of having been ON one of the greatest shows in tv history, but you don’t get the simple, removed glee of getting to love it quite the way we do. You can’t just sit there thinking “man, I love this episode with the nanites” cause for you it’s “man, I remember having to say nanites about six million times in this episode”. It’s like you don’t really get to be a nerd like the rest of us. Not fair.
Ok, enough. This really is only a new insight for me. Rambling…need more coffee…
I remember the same things. When I was very young, like 4 I think, I had an operation, and I was home for two weeks from kindergarden. I sat and watch Kirk, Spock and Bones for what seemed like all day, but of course it wasn’t. I also watched Emergency, and when I was older, it was similar to what you say. Game shows and then blah. Later in the afternoon we had Get Smart, G-Force and Gilligan’s Island though 😉
Get well 😀
Feel better soon! Healing mojo coming your way…
Tim in NorCal
Wow…Amnesia Lane…I had one of those VCRs. It was heavy. And it had a remote that had a cord that plugged into the back of it. Scary where my mind goes sometimes…
Lately, I’ve liked to watch Almost Famous when I’m sick. I tend to skip over the Kate Hudson-stomach pumping scene though…for obvious reasons.
Hope you feel better soon…remember, rest and lots of fluids. And perhaps cough drops, if that cough has developed.
Heh. You take direction well. You’re following your mom’s script to the letter. 🙂
It’s amazing how much more tolerable sickness is when you’ve got DVDs. Don’t know how we got along without them before.
Feel better, buddy.
ah yes, the top-loading betamax vcr with dad’s pirated copy of return of the jedi!! (we didn’t have cable, but dad had two microwave receivers fed into his c-128 and media center)
i am such a geek, tho, because my favorite stay-at-home-sick movie of all time is actually Stand By Me. of course, that was staying home sick from college classes or skipping work. i went through two vhs tapes and was ecstatic the first time i saw the dvd. (i think i’ve been through three copies of the book, too — favorite ever movie-book combo!)
sending you much monkey mojo and lots of virtual ginger ale.
i’m still working my way through the archives and finally hit august of ’02. lunchtimes at work have never been so fun! 🙂
peace,
enderFP
I’m so sorry you’re feeling bad. I work with kids, so I’m always getting whatever goes around. When I was a kid, I would mostly be home alone when I was sick. I would wake up just in time for the Price is Right, then watch soaps or PBS until I fell asleep. I loved the Electric Company! I wish they would do a “best of” DVD. There was also a mini-series caled The Voyage of the Mimi, with a 12 year old very non-hot Ben Affleck, that was great. Anyway, I hope you feel better soon!
We used to watch Inspector Gadget, the Transformers, GI Joe, He-Man.
(Why did He-Man have such a high voice? He had those BIG muscles and a teeny-tiny package. Maybe this BALCO conspiracy goes even further back?)
Anyway, I’ve got seasons 3 through 6 of DS9 on DVD. I’ll messenger them over now.
–AJ @ the ER
ps– I’m giving 5 to 2 that Wil spends more time on his PC(s) than in front of the tube. Takers?
Your story reminds me of when I was young. When I would get sick and have to stay in bed, my Grandmother would cut up an orange into little cubes and wedges and sprinkle sugar on it. Fresh fruit was a rare and expensive treat in (relatively) Rural Alaska in the 60’s, so it was really a special effort on her part.
Its funny but I never actually enjoyed oranges that way when I wasn’t sick, it always seemed too sweet and sticky, but when I’d be laying in bed all aching and sweaty with a cold or whatever the ailment was, it was truly the food of the gods!
Thats the strongest memory I have of being sick as a child, its always interesting to realize what things stick in your brain and what things don’t.
Must be the cold that’s sweeping the nation–my grad school friends and I have all had the same thing here in Ohio, and right before our Master’s exams.
Get well!
😀
doesnt that fall under what goes around comes around aswell? 🙂
enjoy your star wars marathon 🙂 kind of fortunate, this illness, right before the premiere….. where else are you gonna get the time to watch all 5 of em? 😛
Our home was very much the same, excepting that my son watched ST:TNG non-stop until he was better. All medicines were referred to as hyposprays. I had my turn as soon as he returned to school.
So…thanks for making us better!
I hope your flu(?) passes quickly.
DVD? What is wrong with you. You’re not a true geek unless you have the original versions on Laserdisc.
No. Not kidding. No deletions, additions, etc.
Pure – non-cgi star wars. You know, where you can see the tape where they attached the tie fighter to the star background…
DVD? What is wrong with you. You’re not a true geek unless you have the original versions on Laserdisc.
No. Not kidding. No deletions, additions, etc.
Pure – non-cgi star wars. You know, where you can see the tape where they attached the tie fighter to the star background…
Its sweet of you to take of him. Im not familiar because my mom always told us to stay away if we were sick. Understandable now, but when your five and feeling like hell warmed over its not a good thing.
Quote Wil: Looks like I’ll spend today watching Star Wars on DVD.
the hardship of it all!!! I would be gutted if I had to spend the day watching Star Wars 😉
Get well soon
Sorry you’re not feeling well, Sparky. Sprite over lots & lots of ice, and some warm soup. Ice cream for the sore throat, too. Be nice to yourself…..
As a kid I would periodically run high, spikey fevers, which would freak my mom out. I am seriously dating myself here, but these were the days before children’s tylenol, etc, so if the asprin wasn’t working, she’d toss me into a tepid bath to quickly bring the fever down. During the AM I’d watch re-runs of The Real McCoys & the Dick Van Dyke show. But at night I’d sometimes watch scary movies. One particular evening I watched one of Francis Ford Coppola’s first efforts, Dementia 13. Somewhere in this movie I vaugely remember seeing a screaming skull. All I really remember is lying in my bed screaming at the top of my lungs because i saw this this skull flying out of my little b&w tv screen straight at me. Mom ran up the stairs, scooped me out of bed and plopped me into the tepid bath, jammies and all.
I haven’t been able to see that movie since.
The wonders of technology will never change the world. It may be a different format, but you’re still watching Star Wars and that’s what is important! 🙂
Hope you feel better!
When I was a kid, mym divorced mom *had* to work, so I stayed home and took care of myself. I watched M*A*S*H and Bugs Bunny.
My kid skips getting sick himself and just brings it home to me. [shrug] I prefer it that way. Such a mom.
now at my house – the rest of the family will get sick too – *hopes Nolan & Anne doesn’t get it too*
Vicks VapoRub. When I got sick as a kid, my mom would rub Vicks VapoRub on my chest. It was confusing. I thought she was trying to kill me with that horrible stuff. But then, she was also being so sweet and nice. Once, before I told her I wasn’t feeling well, I hid the Vicks VapoRub. Had to climb up on the toilet, to climb up on the pedestal sink, to precariously balance in the sink, to open the cabinet to retrieve the goo. This was quite an adventure for a sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy-headed four-year-old in footed pajamas. But I got the goop, and hid the junk behind some books in the bookshelf. And only THEN, “Mom, I don’t feel so good.” As predicted, she marched straight to the bathroom in search of the offensive ointment. In a few moments, after some rumblings in the living room, she popped her head into her bedroom (we were allowed her bed when ill 🙂 ), keys in hand, and announced, “I’m going to the dime store. Be right back, and I’ll make you feel all better.” You just can’t escape the Vicks VapoRub in my family. Years later, when we moved out of that house, we found that ugly, stinky blue jar behind those books.
Hope you feel better.
Man, I haven’t thought about ONTV in like 20 years!