Windows or DVD
I saw a commercial the other day for a family mini van that was more like a living room with a DVD player and a card table. I can’t seem to find a reason to justify this sort of equipment. I'll admit that I am a TV junkie, just not in a car. I have a hard time looking away form a movable bill board, but I resist because they are unnatural.
When I was growing up our vacations were all taken by car, be it a ten hour drive to Canada, or the twenty-four hour drive to Florida. I spent weeks in cars watching the landscape pass. This was entertainment, better than any DVD that the kids insist on watching today. I was able to look at and wonder at the flora and fauna, geology, architecture and mechanical engineering. I studied clouds and stars from the back seat of an Oldsmobile Super 88.
Our road trips had me asking questions about things I was seeing but didn’t understand. My father told me he realized I taught myself to read when I was only three years old. I was reading theater marquis as we drove through New York City.
I love looking out windows. I used to get pissy when flying because it was courtesy to close your window shade while in flight so people could watch a movie. Here I am at 30,000 feet with a beautiful view above clouds and mountains and crop circles and I have to close my window so someone else can watch Whoopie Goldberg in another movie that will be forgotten as soon as we deplane.
I guess it’s all changed these days with personal monitors behind every seat. I haven’t flown in over ten years now, and I don’t plan on going anywhere, but I do miss looking out the window and seeing the clouds from above.
I find that no matter where I go there is always something interesting to see out the window. Even the least interesting view through a window is better than any DVD.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 5:31 AM
4 Comments:
We played games in the car - like "I see something...(pick a color)." Or, "the next car to pass us will be (pick a color)." Grandpa always won that one, because we hadn't figured out the whole side view mirror thing.
Those DVD players are a distraction during night driving for other drivers. They should ban 'em.
My kids find riding in the car cross-country like a sleeping potion. I rarely even hear a peep out of them, even at 17,14,14.
Great music and a view out the window are all you need in a car - although on those long car trips as a kid, I did wish I could read without getting carsick.
Damn! I don't usually even have music on in the car. It's a wonder I never got whiplash from looking side to side as a kid on the rare days we'd actually go someplace special in the car/truck:)
Beth - you also need AC for long summer trips. Having all the windows open just doesn't cut it while driving through The Badlands during the summer. ;)
My family played the alphabet game, on long trips. Or watching for a roadside distraction ... like the "Barbed Wire Museum".
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