Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 13, 1995 TAG: 9506130029
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I'm walking across the living room, and I'm tripping over two children sitting there mesmerized at the wall."
Actually, it was the TV: His kids, Ashley and Geoffrey, loved to watch the tube.
But it wasn't just his kids. Glass, a self-employed entrepreneur and inventor in Roanoke, found he was watching too much TV himself - four to six hours a day.
So in December 1993, he tossed out his TV, resolving to go without for one year - and to learn more self-discipline when it came to television.
In the first six months, he probably read more books "than in the past 30 years."
He and his kids, 10 and 13, started looking forward to playing games or telling stories when they came to their father's house.
At bedtime, he'd start making up a story, then let Geoffrey continue it, interrupt ("Stop!"), and let Ashley continue until the three of them had crafted an exciting tale together. It got to the point, he said, where they would set their own bedtimes earlier so there would be more time for story-telling.
Glass made it a year without TV, and then some. But this February, he was helping a friend clean out his basement. Under some old stuff, they found a small TV.
His friend said, "I didn't know there was a TV there. You don't have one do you?"
Glass said, "No. And I don't want one."
His friend insisted, Glass says, and, "I guess I just went ahead and did it."
And, he jokes, "it has ruined my life again."
Actually, his relationship with TV has changed.
"It used to hinder me, as far as getting things done," he says. "Now, if I don't watch it, it doesn't bother me." It's usually on at 5:30 p.m. for reruns of ``The Andy Griffith Show,'' but he generally watches only an hour or two a day now.
Still, he has to exert the discipline he learned in his 14 months without TV. "The fact that it's here, I turn it on more than I should," Glass said one recent overcast afternoon. "I'm sitting here today wondering: Should I or shouldn't I?"
by CNB