Re-runs
At my work we have a few massive events sprinkled throughout the year, but the largest and most stressful in my estimation is Annual Conference. This is best described to outsiders as the big annual meeting where the whole organization comes together to do the business necessary for the coming year. This occurs at the end of May, typically the weekend before Memorial Day weekend, and once it is done summer mode officially begins.
The office does not shut down during the summer, but we do get Fridays off. In order to get Fridays off we work longer days Monday through Thursday. That can be challenging as we still have to get the expected amount of work done, but once Thursday evening comes around it feels totally worth the extra effort. These three day weekends are the closest thing to a true summer break that I’ve had since I started working in high school: three days in a row with no obligations except for those plans that I make for myself. It is blissful.
I love a vacation, but they often involve a good deal of planning, schedules, travel, spending money, and stress. For as fun and refreshing as the vacation time can be, I find I often need a day or two at home to recover from the vacation. Which is why I find the simple days off to be such a pleasure.
Perhaps my favorite summertime memories are those from when I was in middle school. I was too young to have a summer job, and was grouchy and introverted enough to make it clear to my parents that I wasn’t going to enjoy participating in any kind of day camp experience just to get me out of the house. A couple of weeks during those summers were spent at sleep away camp or on vacation with my family, but otherwise my time was my own and I wasted it away with the best of them.
One year in particular I was obsessed with three things: Archie comics, Nick at Nite, and fake fingernails. At the time we lived in a condo fairly close to downtown Clinton. On the many days that I had nothing to do I would often hop on my bike in the morning, before it got too hot, and ride down the massive hill into Clinton. Waiting for a lull in traffic, I would panic ride across Main Street and continue down to the pharmacy next to the A&P and across the street from where we used to rent videos. There, with money that I probably stole from my sister’s stash (sorry, Meredith), I would buy glue on nails, nail polish, the latest Archie comics, and usually some kind of junk food type snack. Then, with plastic bag hanging from one of the handle bars, I would make my way back up the massive hill to our beautifully air conditioned condo.
I don’t remember how I filled the afternoon hours, but one can assume that I did my nails and sneakily ate the snacks of which I knew my mother would not approve. Probably I tortured the cat some, laid on the couch, maybe read a book or my comics for a while. The afternoon didn’t matter to me. It was all just hours to power through until 8:00 pm, which was when the magic started: Nick at Nite’s Block Party Summer.
Nick at Nite was my favorite thing about summer and is how I came to learn so much of television that I was too young to know anything about. Block Party Summer worked like this: for something like six or eight weeks during the summer Nick at Nite assigned each weeknight a specific show and then played six episodes of that show each week. So one year there was The Munsters Monday, I Love Lucy Tuesdays, Bewitched Wednesdays, I Dream of Jeannie Thursdays, and Welcome Back, Kotter Fridays. The shows changed each year and over the course of two or three summers this is how I came to be educated in the above listed shows as well as The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, The Jeffersons, All in the Family, and The Brady Bunch.
I loved it. If we happened to go out for something during the week I would be antsy, not knowing if we would get home in time for my shows to start. I considered it the greatest of accomplishments if I made it to Saturday having seen every episode of each show for that week. I was certain this was the best use of my time and loved every evening that I was able to slip back a few decades and enjoy some old-timey (to my mind) entertainment.
While I also liked and followed certain contemporary television shows, leaning back into these re-runs of classics was the ultimate summertime vibe. There were no cliffhangers on any of the shows I was bingeing. If there were moments of suspense they were tiny and the outcomes predictable, which I found delightful and comforting. Any emotions brought on by these shows were simple and easy to digest: generally they made me laugh and occasionally something heartwarming would happen. Nothing about Nick at Nite made me work hard: emotionally, physically, or mentally. It was just pure joy and relaxation, aka exactly what summer should be.
The binge-watching culture which we now live in was obviously designed for people like me, those perfectly content to lay around for hours at a time just consuming content. And I will not lie, I binge shows with regularity. But there are times that I miss the structure of the regular tv season matching the school year. I miss the occasional cliffhanger and the anticipation and excitement of waiting to find out what happens. Most of all I miss re-runs.
It used to be that I watched re-runs because that was the only option; it was the only thing on in which I was interested, so I watched. Nowadays there is always another option. It seems that something new is always being released. And yes, sometimes you do have to wait to find out what happens, but it’s not the same. While you’re waiting for the next season of one show to be released there are innumerable other options to keep you entertained. The list of new shows to check out never seems to shrink; as soon as one show gets checked off, three more are added.
While I try to keep up with the shows that interest me, sometimes I find it hard to start a new show or even a new season of a show I’ve already watched. I like to give my full attention to new episodes so that I can fully appreciate the whole show, or pick it apart and find little details that I love (or love to hate). In short, it takes work to lay around and binge watch like the professional show watcher that I am. Often times I opt to watch something that I’ve seen several times before. I put on a show as background noise while I work on a puzzle or sew or crochet, looking up only at my favorite parts.
This is the closest I get nowadays to experiencing re-runs, but it’s not the same. I’m still choosing what to put on. I can skip episodes if I want to, pause when I want to, and stop to change shows any time I wish. The viewer has too much power in this world of streaming services, making it nothing like the re-runs we used to get on cable. I miss the simplicity and blissful joys of the Nick at Nite Block Party Summer.
Summertime is great, but it wouldn’t be as good if we didn’t have the rigors of the non-summer times. Without the months of prep and stress leading up to and including Annual Conference, I wouldn’t appreciate the extra day to myself each week as much. If there were nothing to escape from, it wouldn’t feel like much of a relief to get the time off. I am actually thankful for the limitations that work puts on our lives, demanding so much and wearing us out. It makes it all the sweeter when the time comes to step away from the cliffhangers and stress-filled moments to simply enjoy the summertime vibes of three days off in a row - the very best kind of re-run.
