The Habs and the Hab-Nots

As mobile homes went, ours was rather swishy. We had three bedrooms and four televisions. This material aggrandizement was less middle-class preening and more Hockey Night in Canada. Good luck trying to sneak in a Saturday episode of M*A*S*H on the “Big TV.”

Banished, I’d sulk to my room to wrestle with the rabbit-eared 16″ Zenith. Mom would just sew. But Dad, a cable-TV pirate, jerry-rigged all the trailer’s electrics. So, when the Singer ran it killed the TV reception. At any moment, Dave Hodge’s voice could be dashing through the frizzling snow.

     And—ho, ho, ho—we knew it.

Inspired by Single on a Double. Image by Roy Schulze.