My grandson is 3 1/2 years old. Whenever he comes to our house, he wants us to put the TV on, and he wants to watch Paw Patrol, although he has seen each episode many, many times. When he isn’t watching Paw Patrol, he is focusing on his obsession with Star Wars. He has Star Wars books, and I am told he has watched the three original Star Wars movies (really?). His obsession is usually manifest by his becoming a Star Wars character – sometimes he is Luke Skywalker, and sometimes he is Princess Leia. He likes others in the room to take on other Star Wars identities and, when that doesn’t happen (and it usually doesn’t), he seems to make up Star Wars adventures which he tells to himself, sometimes in the third person, I think, and sometimes in the first. He likes to hunt down the bad guys, and talks a lot about Darth Vader. He is way ahead of me on all of this. I walked out of the first Star Wars movie almost 50 years ago (believe it or not), as I was bored to death, and haven’t seen anything about Star Wars since.

And I certainly wasn’t obsessed with any television show when I was 3 1/2. In fact, I might not have even known there was television when I was 3 1/2. We did not have one, and my memory is that the first TV I ever saw was at our neighbor’s house. And my guess is I was 5 or 6. I used to go there after school. I think St. Louis’ only TV station at the time, KSD-TV Channel 5, didn’t even come on the air until about 4 in the afternoon, because when we turned the TV on, we watched the test screen, with an Indian in the center. How un-PC. (It wasn’t until later that I also learned that there was a ticker tape with the news scrolling across the bottom. Our neighbor’s TV screen was so small, that we didn’t get to see the news.)

But in my early years, there certainly were TV shows that I watched religiously. Most important, of course, was Howdy Doody and, to tell you the truth, Princess Summer Fall Winter Spring (whose name I did not think was unusual at the time) might have been my first love. And clearly the puppets on the show were as real to me as Buffalo Bob or Clarabel. I test my memory by trying to name all the characters, including Dilly Dally and Flubadub, and both Phineas T and Don Jose Bluster, and Inspector John J Fadoozle (did I get that last one right?). There were probably others.

But Howdy Doody wasn’t the only show I watched. There was Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. I remember what their space ship looked like, and I remember that their “engineer” was Roger Manning, who was Venusian. Tom had a co-pilot I don’t remember at all, and I have no idea what type of adventures they were having, but I know they were exciting.

And before Tom Corbett, there was Time for Beanie. A cartoon series featuring not only Beanie, but Cecil the Sea Sick Sea Serpent. You can find some of the old Beanie episodes on YouTube, and I watch them now and then, especially because of the word play humor that was clearly beyond me as a pre-schooler. I also remember Kukla, Fran and Ollie and, to tell you the truth, this show left me cold. There was nothing in it to attract me, and I became quickly engrossed in something else. Fran was clearly no competitor to Princess SFWS.

That was about it for my childhood TV, except for some Saturday morning cartoons. When my kids were that age, they obviously watched very different things and – to be honest – I paid no attention to their shows at all, even when I was in the same room. People mention children’s shows of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and early 2020s, and I draw a complete blank. Never watched any of them.

I did, of course, make up stories, with make believe people, but I have no idea where my stories came from. My first imaginary friend, believe it or not, was a grown up soldier, who was serving overseas during World War II. Since the war ended before I was three, I must have been pretty precocious to have invented him. And I think I must have been fairly obsessed. Why else would my parents had got me a dog with the same name, Beadie, as my soldier friend, who disappeared, I think, the day four legged Beadie arrived. (Now, I must admit I don’t know how either Beadie spelled their name – with an ie, or a y; with an ea or an ee; even with a d or a t. I was only 3 years old, after all.)

I think my friend Spike lasted longer than Beadie, although I could be wrong. And I can’t tell you much about Spike. I only saw him when I was sitting at the table eating. I know nothing about his background. I don’t remember what we spoke about. And, no, he wasn’t sitting in the chair next to me. He was somehow sitting on the ceiling (“i after e, except after c”).

Then, I guess, one day Spike was gone. I don’t remember that day, either. No matter how much I try.

I saw a clip of Donald Trump this morning. From an old deposition, I think. He was asked if he remembered saying “I have the best memory of anyone in the world” (or something close to that). His response was: ”No, I don’t remember.”

I am more modest. I have no claim to remember as much as Donald does. But perhaps I should. As Yogi Berra might have said – he remembers more than even he remembers.

Cheers.