When I was growing up, one did not watch TV, or at least you didn’t watch TV as a solo activity. You folded clothes. You cut out a pattern. You did something.
We never had an Atari or a Nintendo. I still suck at video games. If you were going to have free time, you spent it producing. My mother graded papers, my father “made sawdust.”
Some time ago, I dared ask my father if there was any real difference between making sawdust and playing video games. After all – depending on how big your perspective is – one more cedar chest in the world doesn’t mean much. (The chest means something to me, don’t get me wrong, but for world peace? Not so much.) Why not do the guy thing and pit yourself against an unseen and irrelevant memory, keeping score along the way and proving to the warrior hanging about in the back of your head that winning is still possible.
He argued that making sawdust creates something tangible and real, and tangible and real is always better than imaginary and fake.
I buy it. For a buck and a quarter, I’m sold.
I make quilts while I watch TV.
