Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 28, 1993                   TAG: 9306260106
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ME? I'D RATHER HAVE TEA OUT ON THE PORCH

I know that would be good news for all of you who are fond of front porches on a summer evening and iced tea served in huge, thick glasses. And maybe a piano playing down the street.

Well, you guys are extinct, and if you don't believe it, I now tell you about this story The New York Times had about these sunglasses with a television set inside them.

According to a picture in The Times, these devices bring to mind a drunk wire editor whose visor has slipped down over his eyes.

You don't see wire editors like that anymore, and that's another thing I miss.

Anyway, you have this TV set in one corner of this modern visor, and you can look at God's scenery or "General Hospital."

You can also look at television while walking around in the mall trying to find a pair of shorts in which you don't look ridiculous.

Based on my own talent for coordination, however, I must say it's going to be difficult for some people to walk and watch television at the same time.

I mean, you're in the middle of a rerun of "Star Trek: The New Generation" and Capt. Picard is about to be wasted by this strange energy mass, and first thing you know you've run down three elderly ladies and a young mother with an infant in her arms.

You take off your visor, and there's a trail of innocent victims, stretching from the shoe store to the camera place - all moaning pitiably.

And the cops come, and you do time for malicious assault without your visor for entertainment because it was confiscated as evidence.

I also don't like to think about people who would wear one of these things driving home at rush hour. As far as I know, there is nothing on TV at that hour as exciting as Capt. Picard being menaced by a strange energy mass, but the idea is still frightening.

I worry, too, about the effect this might have on domestic America. Already, there are signs that the number of households containing lawfully wedded people is decreasing.

So, you get some hotshot of a husband who is wearing his visor and watching tennis on HBO and not listening while his wife is filling him in on their social schedule for the weekend.

She goes home to mother on Saturday at 7 p.m. when he comes home from a fishing trip smelling very bad, and they are due at her sister's for dinner at that very hour.

She takes him to the cleaners on grounds of mental cruelty.

Me? I think I'll get an estimate on building a front porch.