Howard and Binge Watching

Cath and I have been watching two or three episodes of the old TV show “Cheers” each evening. Cathy recalled it was the same way we watched it in the late ‘80s. We were stationed in Germany and our friend Howard was a lifeline to America. He sent us VHS tapes every couple of months with recorded TV shows and movies. We were binge watching before they invented the term.

I have talked about Howard in other blogs. Friends since before kindergarten, we did pretty much everything together through high school. After that, we were not with each other as often, but anytime we could get together, we did. In fact, he visited us in Germany several times in the ‘80s and even lived with us for a couple of months in ‘82. We may have had one or two German biers and English ales together along the way.

In ‘85, we returned to Germany for another tour of duty.  A couple of months later, we received a package from Howard. Opening it, we found three or four VHS tapes with a combination of recorded movies and TV shows.

It is worth a slight divergence in the story at this point. In Germany at the time, if you lived on Post, there was one American TV station called Armed Forces Network (AFN.) It consolidated some TV shows and news from the States, but the TV shows were generally reruns from a few years before. We, however, did not live on Post and the AFN signal did not reach us. At the time, Germany itself had three TV stations. German programming was, ummm, not great. We would occasionally watch a German show, to practice our German, but that was about it.

I probably complained to Howard in a letter about the lack of TV, or maybe he remembered it from ‘82 when he lived with us. In any case, he decided to do something about it and started sending us the tapes.

Because we knew each other so well, he provided a collection of shows we would enjoy – movies new to TV; John Wayne movies; Laurel and Hardy shorts; Sherlock Holmes movies; Bugs Bunny cartoons; and of course, TV shows like Cheers, Newhart, and The Cosby Show. At Christmas time, there would be Christmas movies like “White Christmas” and “Miracle on 34th Street,” or TV shows such as “Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special.”

When we received the tapes through the mail, we saved them for the weekend. Then, on a Sunday, we binge watched our way through the tapes, receiving a small dose of Americana.

This went on for our four years on that tour. I am not sure how many tapes he sent, but certainly somewhere between 50 and 100.

Sometimes we sent the tapes back for Howard to reuse. Some, such as the tape of “White Christmas” we kept and watched multiple times over the years. One of the tapes Howard sent had six hours of Bugs Bunny cartoons. We kept that tape for decades and when we first moved to the farm in ‘99, still had it. At the time, we did not have TV because of living in the boonies. If someone came to visit us with kids, we’d put the tape on to entertain the rugrats, while we adults did whatever. I think most kids had not seen Bugs and were enthralled by him (and quiet).

The world moved on to DVDs, and of course streaming services. We eventually received TV at the farm via Direct TV, and at some point, threw away our VHS player and the tapes. 

As we watched “Cheers” the other night, we talked about Howard and the tapes. His small act of kindness all those decades ago made a difference in our lives. We loved living in Germany, but it was nice to have tethers with life back home and Howard provided one of those ties. It is one of those gifts you can’t really pay back, at least not directly.  Still that is the kind of friendship we had, and still have to this day.

Addendum:

Thanks to Cathy for her editing assistance and suggestions for this blog.  Both of us remember celebrating the arrival of a VHS tape package from Howard.