Yesterday afternoon I had a couple of hours free with nothing to do. Bill was absorbed in watching YouTube videos telling him how to put together and subsequently fly the fancy-dancy drone he recently bought. I finished a puzzle while listening to an Irish lad tell Bill how to fly the drone without crashing it into elderly residents of Wind Crest or taking off several of his own fingers. I actually heard the fellow say something along the lines of, “You really want to be careful to stay away from the [thus and so]. I had an accident when I first got the drone and while I had no lasting damage, I really warn you to be careful.”

I have little doubt that the [thus and so] will be taking us to the Emergency Room at some point.

Anyhoo, dinner was in the refrigerator awaiting time to put it in the oven and I was between books. So I went into our bedroom and turned on the television. The first thing I need to tell you is that the television screen is BIG. When we purchased the new TV for our living room just prior to moving, the store was having a sale: two 55 inch LG televisions for a bargain price. Before I could say NBC, I was the proud owner of two 55 inch televisions. The television works great in the living room. In the bedroom, it’s a bit like sitting in the very front row of a movie theater. I love my husband.

I wasn’t in the mood for any of my British mysteries, but I didn’t want to start a movie. I was browsing around Hulu and discovered that they offer some of the old television programs that I used to love in the 1980s. I was especially interested in Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere. I remember watching those programs while feeding my baby.

I started with Hill Street Blues. Man, I remember loving that show. The one-camera photography was new and different. It gave the watcher the feeling of actually being in the squad room of the lower-income area in the unnamed metropolis. The first thing I noticed was that everyone was smoking — cigars, cigarettes, there was even a pipe. The second thing I noticed was that, though it was 1981 and the women’s movement was in full swing, sexism abounded. I cringed when one of the police officers looked down the front of the woman district attorney’s blouse without her doing anything about it but giving a big sigh. Hmm. Then came the scene in which the two police officers answered a domestic call. A woman was threatening to kill her husband because he was having sex with her 16 year old daughter. The man protested, pointing out that his wife didn’t provide satisfaction often enough. The cops calmly explained that the man must — simply MUST — stop sleeping with the teenager. They then told the woman to make herself available to her husband more often.

I changed the channel.

St. Elsewhere was considerably more palatable. I didn’t remember that Howie Mandel was in the cast, playing a light-hearted doctor. I did, however, remember that Denzel Washington was part of the cast. I also remembered how cute the main doctor was, what with his curly hair and all. While Hill Street Blues is history for me, I might actually watch a few more episodes of St. Elsewhere for old times’ sake.