They Said Someday You'll Find All Who Love Are Blind

They said someday you'll find

All who love are blind

Oh, when your heart's on fire

You must realize

Smoke gets in your eyes

-The Platters

For my birthday, my parents generously gifted me the entire series of Homicide: Life on the Street. It was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid. I remember watching it for the first time when my parents and probably sibs were out of the house. I wasn't too old, twelve maybe. The whole house was dark except for the television set. I loved the premise: the procedural stories of homicide detectives in Baltimore; I remember feeling I was doing something illicit by watching such a violent and mature show without my parents knowing. As it happened, I'd bumped into a marathon of episodes, so by the time my fam returned, I was hooked.

I've always had a thing for true crime and true crime-type entertainment and Homicide only deepened the interest. Soon, I was insisting on watching it in its weekly time slot. Often my dad joined me and tried to make it through the whole episode without dozing off (not because the show was a snooze). The show eventually dropped from the major networks and I didn't have access to it on cable.

So, to receive the entire season was a terrific gift! Initially, I wanted J to watch with me, to watch at least two entire seasons and give it a good shot (crime drama isn't his thing at all). I wanted to share the show that I loved so much with him; and, I'll admit, he didn't hate it. The problem was that I couldn't wait that long! Jesse'd be willing to watch one, maybe two episodes a week along with whatever we had on the docket for a particular week, and that is just not good enough for me. Needless to say, I've continued on without him. And, of course, I love it. I remember a lot of it and that's just fine. I'm really, really enjoying it.

But I've noticed something about this series, which started in 1993. It's not something you see today and it's something I've noticed in the series Mad Men that J and I have recently started watching via Netflix. Mad Men is set in the 1960's.

Do you know what was common in television then and is pretty taboo these days? SMOKING! Everyone smoked in teevee shows in 1993; everyone smoked everywhere in the 1960's (right?). Thanks to Reality Check, among others, we're totally unaccustomed to seeing smoking on screen these days.

I'm certainly not complaining; but it is certainly something I noticed!