It was one of those days.

You know the kind. The hurrier you go, the behinder you get.

It reminded me of a time when I ran track in order to stay in shape for other sports. The team was running along with a coach. He was good at running. I can’t say how good he was at walking. He ran everywhere. We ran and ran. We wheezed along at a less than leisurely pace while the coach talked to us in both encouraging and threatening tones. He talked because he wasn’t wheezing.

“Girls,” he said. That’s a coach’s term of endearment. It cracks them up. “You’re doing a commendable job. We’ve covered three miles.”

For some reason, that revelation caused me to pick up the pace.

“And,” added the coach, “we should reach the starting point soon.”

It was that kind of a day.

I did a radio show, visited some folks at a nursing home, attended a meeting, wrote part of a magazine piece, and spoke at a church.

It was a good day and I’d worked up quite an appetite.

I don’t have to do anything in order to work up quite an appetite.

I stopped at an establishment offering vittles for those with quite an appetite.

The place was busy and the smell of food brought thoughts of ambrosia.

I grabbed a menu and sat down. It was dinnertime. I’d missed lunch. I quickly found the chow of my choice at a price that didn’t cause a shudder to climb my spine.

There was a fly in the ointment. There were TV sets everywhere. It was hard not to see one. I prefer no TV while I eat. It isn’t so bad if the sound is off. The restaurant’s TVs were not quiet. They sounded as if they were yelling at an echo. I feared they were there to take my mind off the food. Research has shown that people eat less in a loud environment, but drink more.

I have vague recollections of the dark ages before TV. People didn’t see terrible things as they happened and there weren’t countless pundits yelling what we should think. People had no clue what movie star was dating what quarterback. It’s a wonder anyone survived.

Then the TVs came in droves, scaling the walls of our castles, and subduing us without a fight. There was one TV in each home. It took several weeks for the set to warm up enough to produce a grainy picture. The bad news was that our first TV received only three channels. The good news was that our first TV received only three channels. There was no charge for the three channels. We called the contraption “the television” or “the television set” much more often than we called it a “TV.”

TVs have multiplied. They are found nearly everywhere. Today, most TVs are connected to cable or a satellite dish. They receive over 150 channels (not even half of which are shopping channels) for a monthly price equal to 30 days’ supply of groceries.

TV changes lives. Watching too many commercials has caused us to need a break every 5 minutes at work and our kitchens are furnished entirely with items from infomercials.

Children were once remote controls. A child, directed by a parent, moved to the TV and changed channels–an exercise program that kept us thin. Everyone watched the same few channels. It brought solidarity.

Our TV was far behind a tire swing hanging at the end of a rope in entertainment value. Drinking lemonade outdoors was much better than watching a commercial about soft drinks.

A fellow I had met earlier in the day waved to me. He invited me to sit with him and his cronies far from a TV. I accepted his offer with a glad heart. I ordered a cheese sandwich, cherry pie, and iced tea.

One of the fellows was eating a caramel roll the size of my head. He slathered butter on the roll.

“I love butter,” he said. “My doctor wants me to curtail my use of butter. Maybe I should call my wife and ask if it’s OK for me to eat this?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said another at the table. “Are you a man or a mouse? You should be able to decide, without consulting your wife, whether or not to butter a roll.”

“You’re right, I’ll add more butter.”

When my check arrived, one of the guys pointed at the roll-eater and said, “He’s paying for yours.”

“Why should he pay my bill?” I asked.

The man laughed and said, “Because if he doesn’t, I’ll tell his wife about the butter.”

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.