I have fond memories of Sunday afternoons in the 1960's. One day a week I had the television all to myself for a few good hours while mom cooked Sunday dinner. Dad rarely watched TV except for the Lawrence Welk Show on Saturday nights. My five siblings simply didn't like the fact that we had only one channel to watch, and Sunday afternoons were reruns of classic movies based on the novels of Charles Dickens. Great Expectations was always my favorite.
One couch, one easy-chair, one TV and me. The television screen was tiny, trivial is size, and the picture was snowy. We say "snowy" but it's not because I was watching A Christmas Carol. A snowy picture meant that the video signal was weak or disrupted by changes in the weather. Such inconsistencies created wrestling matches between the gray-scaled Pip and the pulsating cloud of interference on the TV screen. I was destined to leave the comfort of my chair to play referee by jiggling the antenna and flip-flopping the bunny ears. With enough technique and determination, Miss Havisham's wrinkled face would become distinguishable and Estella's arrogant voice could be heard once the static in the sound diminished to a trickle.
I loved those movies and I loved those afternoons. Nowadays, I have the entire collection of Dickens novels available on my Kindle, and my subscription to Netflix allows me instant gratification when I'm in the mood for a BBC classic on any afternoon of my choosing. And yet, I think I appreciated Dickens more when I had to work for that pleasure. In the 1960's, when the Ghost of Christmas Present said, "Come and get to know me better," I did so by moving off my chair to fix the reception so I could get to know him better.
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