The magic light box

Television was never a big part of my early childhood. In the early 1980s, TV was a new phenomenon that had just been introduced to our community merely a decade before. Even though mom and dad furnished our living room with a new television set we had nothing to watch.
CBC was the clearest channel we could receive and it was fuzzy. TVO provided regional programs from Ontario. These two channels offered plenty of educational programming but we yearned for the big blockbuster movies we often heard about.
Sometime in the 80s, a CTV signal appeared but it was never really that clear. We went to great lengths to try to coax a better signal from our television. Everyone in the family thought they might have the magic touch in fabricating metal coat hanger antennae extensions and aluminum foil streamers attached to the TV rabbit ears.
CTV offered more variety and once in a while a low budget movie would appear so we were eager to try to catch a better signal.
It was during this period in my childhood that I developed an ability to watch just about any movie or show; heck I was happy to simply be able to see a clear image on that old TV.
Of course my favourites were the more recent big budget Hollywood films but I also enjoyed Kung Fu movies, action flicks, B movies, horror movies, black and white classics, low budget films, independent productions and even foreign language movies. When our local church started broadcasting so that Elders at home could watch daily mass, we gained a fourth channel. When mass wasn’t on air, we were fed a diet of religious epics and let me tell you that experience started me on a journey of accepting anything that came across the tube. My siblings and I sat through hours of Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments and The Greatest Story Ever Told.
When I think about it now, it was good to not have so much exposure to the multitude of channels available to communities in the south. I spent more time outdoors with my friends and family. We played all day in the heat of the summer sun and trudged through blinding snowstorms in imaginary frost fantasy worlds just for the fun of it. There was no reason to stay inside under the spell of the television because most of the time the screen was just full of snow. Life outdoors offered more adventure and entertainment.
As my friends and I became teenagers in the 90s, visual entertainment changed and became almost all consuming. Video rental businesses boomed and with the addition of a VCR in our home, we could watch the latest Hollywood films. It seemed like everyone wanted to run a video rental business in Attawapiskat at the time. Many thought they had found the money tree.
My friends and I all had the same taste in films and by that I mean we had none. Nobody complained if we watched a boring movie. It didn’t matter what was on the screen, as long as it was new and fresh. Sitting in a friend’s bedroom in the dark watching a forgettable movie on a 15-inch screen was a chance to leave Attawapiskat for a while and forget the difficult world we lived in. Life was a constant roller coaster of dysfunction in our reality. At times, with the push of a button, we moved out of our third world reality and into the Canadian dream.
These days the world is my oyster as I have high-speed Internet access to services like Netflix or iTunes. I don’t even have to leave my home to rent a movie anymore. Television networks are broadcasting more and more over the Internet. Websites like YouTube and Google Video provide plenty of independent documentaries.
My parents and Elders never really understood why anyone would want to sit and watch a little box for hours on end. They preferred being able to take part in life through the necessity to fend for our family and take care of our home. Reality back then was all about survival.
My generation, and more recent ones, has a difficult time adjusting to a new world where our traditions and cultural values and practices were slipping away. We have one foot in the past and one in modern day with the realities of dealing with oppression, colonization, addictions and the bright lights of the movie world.
Sometimes it felt good to turn to Chee-Kan-Teh-Pee-Neesh-Chi-Kan or as it translates in Cree - the magic light box.www.underthenorthernsky.com