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This was my best Tuesday for a while and doing the podcasts had not set me back too far, but I still went back to bed once we’d got the kids to school. The boy was very reluctant to go today, having managed to wangle a day off yesterday. Dressing a child who doesn’t want to be dressed is one of the hardest tasks known to mankind. He often makes a fuss about going into school, but always seems to have a good time, though like his dad, he’s exuberant and sensitive, which is a deadly combination when trying to navigate your way through childhood (and life).
I took it easy for the rest of the day and ended up checking out the first episode of Little House on the Prairie. I thought I’d only watch 5 minutes of it and was just curious to see what this childhood staple was actually like. LHOTP as the cool kids call it, and the Waltons were both in a similar vein (I couldn’t remember which one had the actress called Michael in it - it was the Waltons) and had the same nostalgic focus and regular people being virtuous and moral and religious. I lapped up this shit as a child, but I think I just watched everything that was on TV. I watched a lot of TV. Which as it turned out would be good for me as I ended up working in TV (for a bit). I am still surprised that my parents let me watch so much TV though.
So how was Little House on the Prairie? Good enough that I ended up watching three episodes (whilst doing other stuff) and the simple opening story-line of Michael Landon having to complete work in order to earn a plough and save his oxen was gripping enough that I needed to find out what would happen. Even though he was new to Walnut Creek, his work ethic impressed the locals so much that when he broke his ribs trying to rescue a kite from a tree and he couldn’t move some sacks of grain for a bad guy, who then took his oxen as recompense, the other townsfolk moved the grain for him (and Michael Landon tried to do it on his own and then his daughters tried to do it - you’d have to have been a prick not to help out).
It wasn’t very realistic, but it was heart-warming and double nostalgic - both of the frontier days and the days when I used to watch Little House on the Prairie. It’s a solid show though and some great characters that remained memorable, in particular the snooty Olsen family (with the down to earth dad who can’t quite work out why everyone else in his family is a cunt).
I mainly remembered the opening and closing titles of course - interestingly this is one of those rare shows that have different music at the start and the end. My main memory is of when Laura jumps up at the end of the show and the frame freezes, there’s a little hair or something on the film that makes it look like she has crazy eyebrows. You’d think they would have sorted that out, but I kind of like that they left it.
In googling the show and the cast I discovered that I am now older than Michael Landon was when he died. And I haven’t even been in Bonanza, let alone LHOTP and Highway to Heaven. What a handsome man he was and so fit that it’s hard to believe that he’d ever die. But turns out that I must be fitter, so cheg on Michael Landon.
I played a quick frame of snooker tonight
