Lassie

I skipped blogging yesterday.  I had an AWFUL day - a truly BAD HORRIBLE day and just couldn't do it last night.  I sat in front of my laptop last night and said, "Forget it."  And I went to bed.  And then I nurtured myself.  See, I had ordered a set of DVDs from Amazon.com a couple weeks ago - the 50th Anniversary set:   The Best of Lassie.  I was very tired but not sleepy, so I watched a couple of episodes.  They were the original ones with Jeff & Mom & Gramps.  Not my favorites...I didn't start watching Lassie until Timmy came along in 1957, but I did find out how Lassie came to live with Jeff in the very first episode broadcast originally in 1954.  After I turned off the DVD player I still tossed and turned a while, but I was more relaxed.  Why?  Lassie, of course.

I think my parents started letting me watch Lassie when I was 2 or 3.  It came on early enough that I could watch it right before bed.  And I loved it.  I mean, I REALLY loved it.  Dad told me later - several times - Dad always told me stuff several times - one of the things I miss about Dad - he told me that he and my mother actually discussed keeping me from watching Lassie.  You see, at the end of the show, that mournful whistled tune would begin and Lassie would sit there in all her (his) beauty...and then...as the music swelled to a crescendo...she would lift her paw.  And, at the end of every show, I would sob hysterically because it was over.  I would cry and cry and cry.  My parents actually worried it was hurting me to be so upset, but then the next Sunday would come and they worried about how much more upsetting it would be for me to lose Lassie.     

Lassie (and Timmy) were on until 1964; then Timmy was replaced by some stupid forest ranger.  The show lost quite a bit of its appeal to me - who wanted to watch Lassie and a GROWN-UP?!  In addition, I was growing up myself and becoming interested in other things.  Like the Beatles and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  I gradually quit watching Lassie. 

I looked up the Lassie TV show in Wikipedia and was amazed to find out that it's one of the longest running dramatic TV shows of all time; it ran continuously from 1954 until 1973 - ironically I was born in 1954 and married in 1973.....how...cosmic.  Even cooler...my first dog was a collie.  A gift from my paternal grandmother Essie Maxwell, who for the only time in her life, did something totally outrageous without asking my parents first.  She gave me a collie puppy.  She rocked my little 6-year-old world that day.

I want to share Lassie with my almost-3-year-old-almost-potty-trained granddaughter Kinsey.  First of all, she needs to know what a real dog looks like and acts like.  (No offense, Harley.  Thank God he can't read.  He's just now getting over the shaving episode.)  Kinsey is spending the night this Friday night and I'm going to try a couple of episodes out on her.  And I'm prepared for her NOT to like them.  If she doesn't we'll just watch SpongeBob Squarepants, the Movie.

And after she's asleep I'll watch 1 or 2 episodes of Lassie.