No Such Thing As A Gifted Television

By Oscar Barajas, NewsTaco

TV was awful when I was growing up. I grew up in a one channel household – and you would get hit if the television would ever leave that particular channel; the Univision affiliate. The only time that channel turning wheel would go clockwise was when I had verbal consent from my father, which was rare. It would only happen if a ballgame was on that needed translating or if a Charles Bronson killing spree marathon was on. I would feel my mother’s disdain build as she was forced to forfeit her novelas so that my father could see either Mike Marshall strike out with men in scoring position or Charles Bronson could shoot inner city scum.

It was clear that we needed a secondary television set, but no one wanted to say it. My parents felt that a second television was an extravagance that would only alert the neighborhood thugs to break into our house. In addition, the priests warned that there was too much Madonna and Simpsons on television seeking to corrupt the minds of the youth of America.

A plan had to be devised, and was. We all have our versions of catching a leprechaun. For me it was when my dad was drinking. I learned how to be an armchair psychologist by the time I was eleven years old. My dad would get philosophical as he bathed his liver with beer after beer. I would sit by his side and listen to where it all went wrong. I always found this fascinating because my father would die a thousand deaths with every beer. He would get stuck on a song and ask for it to be rewound, over and over again.  In between songs, he would make me promise to take care of my grandmother if something should happen to him. I would agree and he would question my word. My reaction would be to question his word as well. He would pump his chest and demand that I detract my statement of insolence. This was the beginning of the fall of the leprechaun.

I would lay out the advertisements from La Opinion, and pointed out the advantages of having a second television. I remember telling my father that a good way to prove his word was to sign a contract to buy the family another television. He agreed and he signed the paper without even reading it. The next morning he woke up with a nasty hangover, and I made it worse by reminding him of our little arrangement. The worse thing about insulting my father’s word when he was drunk, was insulting his dignity when he was hungover. He was not about to let me beat him on a technicality. I had the paper in hand, and my mom would laugh every time I would bring it out and show her where my father had signed. There was no way out.

My father dragged me to the discount store for a nice black and white model. I was one of the few kids that went into the seventh grade with my own television set. It was the smallest and the cheapest one there and it came with multiple conditions. I had to share it with my sister, and turn it off when my parents were asleep. My father worked for Union Pacific and most days he was in bed by 6:00 PM because he had to be up by 2:00 or 3:00 AM. In the end, my father had the last laugh because I would arrive home from junior high school at 4 and after homework, I would have a nice fifteen minute window to watch reruns of Charles in Charge. Sometimes he would come around and unplug the set when he claimed that Madonna was on the screen when in fact was only Nicole Eggert or even Scott Baio, which goes to show, no matter the contract, there is always an escape clause.