Penny Caldwell, the editor of Cottage Life magazine is pondering a TV for the cottage. In this month’s summer edition she writes:

“The cottage is not a place where you take a TV set. TVs lead to unsightly towers and moral degradation (they don’t call them idiot boxes and boob tubes for nothing). Bringing one to the cottage is the first tumble on the slippery slope toward unstoppable development on our shoreline. In effect, TV at the cottage signals the decline of cottage country as we know it…”

While it is true that your brain uses less activity watching television than it does sleeping thereby earning it the title, “Boob Tube,” I’m not sure watching an occasional movie at the cabin is going to destroy cottage life as we know it.

Penny’s tongue-in-cheek article is part of our Canadian psyche which states, “You should be outside playing on a sunny day not watching TV,” a sentiment echoed by Chritian Lander, author and blogger of StuffWhitePeopleLike.com.

There is no doubt that once I turn on the boob tube I have a hard time turning it off even though there is absolutely nothing worth watching, but according to Penny’s editorial, her sole reason for wanting a TV at the cottage is to watch movies. Never once does she mention missing Peter Mansbridge or Rex Murphy- who incidentally are the only two things you’re going to be watching without a satellite dish in cottage country.

Is there anything wrong with watching movies at the cabin? A bowl of popcorn, a blanket and a good movie is a very enjoyable evening. I think we’re loathe to change traditions at the cabin. It’s our rituals that hold us hostage. Old rocking chairs, lumpy mattress and no dishwashers might be the way my parents cottaged, but I’m not sure I want that to be part of my experience.

Penny, I strongly urge you to break down and buy a DVD player. They’re lightweight and portable. Technically, you’re not watching TV, and more importantly, you’ll be able to watch movies in your hammock!

Cheers,

Julie

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 10:58 am and is filed under Current News, Entertaining. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.