Last week I saw an interesting post on Facebook titled: “Seeking Kelowna, BC Firefighter named Brent.”

The 300 word post was written by a man named Tom Argall from Brampton, Ontario. He explained that his mother had just been visiting Kelowna and had tripped on a bit of raised sidewalk, falling hard, breaking her arm and bruising her face. Luckily an off-duty firefighter was driving by, stopped and came to her rescue.

Tom ended his post with this:

“I want to thank Brent. I’m over two thousand miles away and I don’t know his last name, but I’m appealing to the six degrees of Facebook to send the message. If you are reading this and you know a Kelowna, B.C. firefighter named Brent, please thank him for me. Shake his hand, hug him, buy him a beer, whatever your preferred expression of gratitude may be. Last Wednesday, wherever he was going, whatever he had planned for the day, whatever was happening in his own life was suddenly irrelevant and secondary to him because a total stranger needed help. We need more people like that in the world.”

He posted his two paragraphs on Facebook a week after the accident on May 1^st. Before going to bed that night he was pleasantly surprised it had already been shared by 99 people. When he awoke in the morning he was amazed it had been shared over 250 times. By May 3rd, his request had been shared by a whopping  2400 people, and within an hour of me sharing it, Brent’s last name was revealed as Beselt.

But Tom already knew that, because, by then, he’d received a message from the man he was looking for.

“I’m not on Facebook,” Brent said. “So I sent him a note through my wife’s account after being asked by so many people if it was me. Even friends from Spain and Saskatchewan contacted us about his post. It was crazy. I was just doing what anybody would have done.”

Tom was happy to hear from him. “I read his message to my mom and she cried,” he said. “In a good way.”

The 77 year old, now in a cast and recuperating nicely, was incredibly appreciative and touched by the kindness of a stranger. Not just one stranger, but many.

A nurse had also stopped to help, and then later visited her in the hospital. There were others that offered assistance too.  And now over 2700 people on Facebook have shared a simple request of a son wanting to thank a stranger for helping his beloved mother.

“Brent was a real hero,” Tom said. “ But so was everyone that helped. I’m very grateful to them all.”

Human decency is alive and well in the world, and there are millions of examples of it being displayed every day. Unfortunately It’s the crazy, negative and tragic stories that get most of the press, which can give the impression we shouldn’t expect kindness and compassion from strangers. We should.

The vast majority of us human beings are more loving than we think. Let’s open our eyes, and hearts, to that.

And if anyone knows the nurse named Kim from Kelowna General Hospital who helped Tom’s mom, please let me know. He’d really  like to say thanks.

Lori Welbourne is a syndicated columnist. She can be reached at LoriWelbourne.com

I struggle with depression and anxiety. Funny that someone with these issues would be writing a column called “On a Brighter Note,” right? Well, it’s ironic at least.

“What do you have to be depressed about?” I was asked in my youth. “Your life could be so much worse.”

Firstly, no kidding. Secondly, that sentiment is probably a big reason why most of us struggling with bouts of depression, or other similar conditions, tend to suppress our feelings rather than discuss or deal with them head-on.

When I was a child and I felt the black cloud of emotional gloom hovering over my head, I would try to shame myself out of those moods by comparing my life to the lives of starving children in third world countries. I rarely talked about my feelings and I learned that a smile, even a fake smile, was what the world wanted to see.

When I grew older I started writing out my feelings, particularly my darkest ones, since that seemed to help me escape my funk. I can’t tell you how often I’ve typed away with tears streaming down my face. Sometimes I could even envision the black cloud above me start to dissipate.

The other thing I’d do is people-watch. Who among us hasn’t felt joy and sorrow, love and loss, success and failure? Observing others and reminding myself of that fact has helped me to feel less alone in my own troubles. Even the smiling, happy faces that look like they haven’t got a care in the world obviously do, or will in the future. None of us gets out of this world unscathed.

I started writing this column because I wanted to share my experiences and life from a positive perspective. I believed that no matter what my circumstance, happiness is just a mindset, and I could either choose to be happy, or to be miserable, and it was a choice I’d have to make daily. I still believe that, and I’d like to be able to report that I’ve always chosen radiant sunshine, but I haven’t. On some days, I just let it rain.

Feelings are feelings and sometimes we can control them, and sometimes we can’t, even when we have loving friends and family to support us.

Recently I decided I needed some professional help. Even as I write this I feel slightly ashamed that I couldn’t just figure it out by myself. But I couldn’t, so I’m doing what I felt I needed to do. If that makes me seem weak, I’m okay with that.

When I first started writing this column four years ago, my mother-in-law asked my husband why anyone would want to read about my life. She didn’t mean it in a negative way, she was genuinely perplexed as to why complete strangers would be interested.

But I guess it’s comparable to my affinity for people-watching. Most of us are naturally curious about other people and that’s why we read, watch or listen to stories about others. It can help us feel less alone in the world, it can help us figure out how to deal with the vast array of emotions we all have, and it can give us the courage to reach out for help when we need it.

On a brighter note, I’ll keep looking for the silver linings. All the clouds have them, as you know.

Lori Welbourne is a syndicated columnist. She can be reached at LoriWelbourne.com

Looking through old photos from when my kids were young, I’m hard-pressed to find very many of myself in there. The reason for this is because I was too busy being the photographer and I would forget to hand the camera over to someone else. The other reason is that I typically didn’t feel presentable and preferred being behind the lens rather than in front of it.

On the rare occasion that I thought I looked good enough, and I actually remembered to ask, my husband would snap a few. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep many of the pictures he took because I’d invariably find fault with my appearance and throw them out.

Good grief. I kick myself for that now. It shouldn’t have mattered how I looked. Photographs of me, especially with my children, are important.

“There’s hardly any of you,” Sam and Daisy have complained when looking through our scrapbooks and photo boxes. I know exactly how they feel since I’ve felt the same way about the lack of pictures of my mother.

But it’s our own fault. Like my grandmothers, we were too self-conscious to pose, and we probably didn’t want to waste money getting photos developed that would just wind up in the garbage.

When I first met my husband he’d attempt to take my picture, but he was rarely successful. Trying to get snapshots of someone who is uncooperative and camera-shy gets tiresome. Thank goodness for my mother-in-law who obviously didn’t care and knew better.

Perusing her photo albums is an entirely different experience because there aren’t just prints of my husband and our kids, there are actually some of me in there too.  Even pre-parenthood pictures, which Sam and Daisy love.

“Is that you?” my nine-year-old daughter asked, pointing to an image of me from 19 years earlier when I first started dating their daddy. “You look so young, Mama.”

I did look young. Young and thin. Ironically I didn’t want to get my picture taken back then because I felt too plump. What was I thinking?

It’s obvious looking through her album that my size fluctuated dramatically over time, particularly during the first few years after my kids were born and I wasn’t quick to lose the extra baby weight. But seeing photos of me with my children at various stages of their lives, no matter how I looked, isn’t just a treat for them, it’s a treat for me as well.

Since turning 40 I haven’t objected to getting my picture taken like I used to. It’s not that I think I’ve become more photogenic, I just care more about capturing moments and less about looking perfect.

I still feel like I should be doing way more of it though. My brother has always snapped a ton of his family, and I’ve noticed my dad doing the same as he’s become more sentimental. I need to follow their lead.

In this digital age we can take an unlimited number of pictures and not worry about getting rolls of photos developed and ending up with a bunch we don’t want. Now when we have images printed, we can hand-pick exactly what we want and save or trash the rest. There’s no such thing as taking too many pictures anymore.

There also should be no such thing as waiting to look perfect. That kind of attitude might work in the modeling world, but in the real world where memories matter, it doesn’t make sense.

Lori Welbourne is a syndicated columnist. She can be contacted at LoriWelbourne.com

In my early twenties I was offered a job as a movie critic and it felt like I’d hit the jackpot. I didn’t know anyone who loved the movies as much as I did, and I enjoyed writing, so it seemed the perfect career opportunity.

My first assignment was a Steven Seagal movie – I no longer remember the name – but I think it had the word law, kill or death in the title. It was an unbearably long action film and not something I would have chosen to watch if I was paying for the ticket myself.

I wrote about the dreadful acting, the substandard screenplay and its implausibility in the most entertaining way I could, and sent it in to the newspaper. To my delight the editor was happy with it and sent me to another free movie. I don’t recall what that second show was either, but I liked it enough to recommend it.

“Your other one was better,” the editor told me after reading it. “Can you rework this so it sounds more like the first one did?” 

When I asked him if he wanted me to write it as though I didn’t like it, he said yes.

“Readers like a good rant,” he explained.

That was the end of my career as a film critic – and I wasn’t sad about it at all. I realized this editor was just one guy with one opinion, but I could already tell from that brief experience that I wasn’t cut out for the job. Sure, I adored the movies, but not all genres. If I could just review comedies, dramas and chick flicks I’m sure I would have loved it. But how can someone who doesn’t appreciate action, horror and fantasy films critique them fairly? Most can’t.

But one person who sure could was the late great Roger Ebert. And what a writer he was. A lot of people didn’t know he won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, but I knew this trivia, as a long-time fan of his work after seeing him for the first time on TV in the early ‘80s – when he was known as the “fat one” on At the Movies.

I didn’t always agree with his opinion, or that of his co-host Gene Siskel, but I sure loved hearing them share their spirited viewpoints. It was obvious their passion for the movies was authentic, and their chemistry together was undeniable.

I was also in awe of their influence. A thumbs-up from one of them was huge for filmmakers back then. And because the pair also reviewed independent movies, foreign films and documentaries, the audience was exposed to so much more than just the mainstream blockbuster fare. I personally would seek out shows I normally wouldn’t have even known about, based upon their reviews. I was grateful to the dynamic duo for expanding my movie-going experience, and for being such a powerful voice for the underdog.

And just as it was hard to imagine anyone filling Gene Siskel’s shoes when he died fourteen years ago, it’s even harder to imagine anyone taking the place of Roger Ebert now. People are not replaceable.

As I’m getting older, I’m seeing more and more of my fellow humans starting to die off. People I knew personally and loved dearly, as well as those I never knew, but whose work I admired immensely.  

I’ve been told you can’t mourn someone you’ve never met, but I think you can. I never knew Roger Ebert personally, but his life affected mine in a very positive way and for that reason I’ll miss his presence here on Earth.

Ultimately, for me, his death serves as yet another reminder that life is short. The more thumbs-up moments we can enjoy wholeheartedly, the better our lives will be.

Lori Welbourne is a syndicated columnist. She can be contacted at LoriWelbourne.com

Call me crazy, but I miss renting movies. I’m not talking about ordering the on-demand shows from cable or Netflix, but physically renting them the old fashioned way – from a video store. That outing used to be a weekend ritual for our family.

Rarely did we know what we’d be taking home until we got there and looked. My husband and I would usually start off doing the rounds together, checking out the new releases before venturing over to the shelves where the older films were displayed in their faded covers; me in the drama and comedy sections, he in the action and thriller. Paul would pick out one or two, and I would pick out one or two and then we’d haggle. Our kids would be in the family section doing the same. More often than not, they’d choose movies they’d already seen. Sometimes we would as well.

It was fun. Even if one person was getting on someone else’s nerves because he or she was taking too long to decide, the experience itself was great.

Of course, if you’d asked me at the time if I’d rather just order shows less expensively, in the comfort of our own home, and not have to pay the late return fees that we almost always incurred, I would have said yes. But I wouldn’t have anticipated just how much I’d miss perusing the aisles in person.

Even decades before that I frequented video stores. In high school my best friend had wealthy parents and therefore owned a brand new state-of-the-art Beta video machine. Being the only one from our group who did at the time, her house became our movie-watching hangout.

We didn’t stop going to theatres – we still bussed downtown for matinees whenever we were allowed. But to rent a show and watch it at night while lounging around eating

homemade popcorn became a wonderful treat for all of us. And picking out the movie at the little rental place beforehand felt magical.

Like my children, we often rented films we’d seen before and would watch them repeatedly. Other times we’d choose them based solely on their covers. Occasionally we’d take advice from the video store owner and rent something completely inappropriate for our age, such The Postman Always Rings Twice or Last Tango in Paris. We would then vow never to take a recommendation from him, or any other adult, in the future.

Over the years the prices dropped and all our families eventually bought video machines. By that time only VCRs equipped for the larger, inferior VHS tapes were being sold, but we didn’t care. We were just happy to watch movies we wanted to see, when we wished, and without commercials.

As with everything in technology, things evolved and those big clunky video tapes we all marveled at when they first came out were replaced with sleek skinny DVD’s that allowed us to pause, select scenes, and never rewind again. Now even those are starting to become a thing of the past for so many of us.

Being able to order movies and TV shows digitally is delightfully convenient in some ways, but the excitement and adventure in hunting for cinematic treasures, new and old, good and bad, is not what it used to be.

Thankfully there are still a few places left for people like me to rewind and revisit that wonderful, magical feeling of our former weekend ritual.

Lori Welbourneis a syndicated columnist. She can be contacted at LoriWelbourne.com

I am a procrastinator. I wish I could say that I wasn’t, but I can’t. It’s very much a part of who I am.

No matter how much time I have to accomplish something, I always end up putting it off until the very last minute. I was like that with school, and decades later, I’m still like that with work. Even with tasks that I love.

This column is a good example of that. I have all week to do it, and because of its slice-of-life anytime feel, I could write a different article every day for ten days and build up a collection to pull from on deadline. But do I do that? No, I don’t.

For years now it’s been suggested that I do. I have friends – organized people who are cool as a cucumber because they’re so darn organized – and they have told me to write at least one or two extra stories to alleviate some of my anxiety. They explain how much better I would feel if I knew I had an article or two waiting in the wings just in case I got sick, or one of my kids got sick, or I couldn’t think of something to write about at the 11^th hour. I nod my head and I agree with them completely. I then vow to start on my first backup column immediately, but something more pressing always comes up that I end up doing instead.

Years ago I asked a psychologist friend for his advice in the hopes of fixing myself. He asked me why I didn’t like leaving things to the last second, and I told him I didn’t like the pressure, particularly when I was overwhelmed with too many other duties at the same time. He then asked if I was still able to get any work done under that kind of stress, and I said yes.

“Sounds like it might be working for you,” he replied. “Maybe you should just relax and accept it as a method to your madness.”

I guess I did, or I would have changed by now. But going forward, do I want to keep working exactly like this when I’m as busy as I am? The answer is no.

Eager for help, I decided to consult Google for some guidance. What was I looking for? A couple helpful suggestions, that’s all. What did I find? Well, the first thing that came up was a list of “101 ways to get organized.” Yeah, okay. That’s about 100 more than I wanted.

What I was really needing to see in that moment was one word: Simplify. Once I saw it in that huge Internet pool of information, it’s what stuck out for me most. I have now printed this lovely word out and tacked it to the wall above my computer.

After years of my daunting to-do list getting longer instead of shorter, I am about to get ruthless with it and truly prioritize.  Some items will get pushed down the page and some will get pushed right off.

One thing I know for sure is that writing a backup column will finally be added to the list. And the only other thing I know right now is that it will be placed somewhere near the top.

Lori Welbourne is a syndicated columnist. She can be contacted at LoriWelbourne.com 

On a recent day when my kids were out playing with their friends I went on a cleaning rampage. It felt good and I didn’t want to stop. But eventually the alarm went off and the time I had allotted for household chores was over. It was time to get back to work.

Sitting down with a cup of coffee in my neat and less cluttered home office, I felt calmer, as if my mind had been organized as well.

And then I heard the dogs barking, the front door opening and a gaggle of children laughing and running up the stairs. I couldn’t help it – I groaned.

“The house is clean,” I announced to my kids and their friends when they asked to play inside. “So, yes you can play here – but you’re not allowed to mess it up.”

“We won’t,” they promised. And then they did exactly what I expected them to do: messed it up.

It’s not that they didn’t try to keep the place tidy. They did. But, like Pig Pen in the Peanuts comic strip, dirt seems to follow these people wherever they go.

They’re young and I want them to have fun. I want them to run around outside and get grubby at the park. I want them to pull out costumes and play dress up in the basement. And I want them to prepare snacks for themselves in the kitchen and experience some independence. But at the same time, I don’t want them to leave any evidence behind that they were ever here. I know – that’s not reasonable.

Keeping my house somewhat orderly with the husband I have, two children, two dogs and many young visitors has been an ongoing challenge for years. I’ve even wondered at times if I was meant to live alone as a spinster where I could keep my little abode spick and span with nobody to clean up after but myself.

I know I wouldn’t really want that though. It’s just a fantasy I imagine when the house becomes a pigsty.

The reality of my life is that as much as I crave organization, it eludes me. Like so many parents, I don’t have enough time.

“If only we could buy hours,” I’ll often say. “I’d buy a few extra of them every day.”

Unfortunately I can’t do that. Or wait, maybe I sort of can.

A few months ago I hired housecleaners to come every other week in order to gain some additional time. I was reluctant about doing it, and part of the reason was that I grew up with the notion that housecleaners were only for rich folks, and we’re not rich.

My other reason is that I knew that if I hired professionals, we’d have to be organized enough and schedule in time to clean for the cleaners.

“Why do we have to put our stuff away?” my kids asked before the first visit from the cleaners. “Isn’t that what the maids are for?”

“They’re not maids and we’re not royalty,” I said. “The cleaners will think anything lying around must be garbage and they’ll just throw it out. If you don’t want that to happen you’d better put your things where they belong.”

Worked like a charm.

How wonderful to not only come home to a tidy house, but to a clean one as well. It literally felt like someone had given me three extra hours of time.

Whether we’re able to keep up with the cost of the outside help or not, I’ve decided I like the strategy of allotting specific times to tackle the cleaning of the house and warning my little Pig Pens, as well as their Papa Pig Pen, to prepare accordingly.

Having a clear, less cluttered mind for me requires some strategizing, and I’m the only one who can make that happen.

Lori Welbourne is a syndicated columnist. She can be contacted at LoriWelbourne.com

My nine-year-old daughter came home last week and said we needed to buy a baby gift for a teacher at her school.

“His name is Ikea,” Daisy said excitedly.

“Whose name is Ikea?” I asked, not knowing if she was referring to the teacher or the infant.

“Mr. Verstraete’s baby,” she said. “He’s a boy!”

“Ikea?” I asked. “Are you sure his name’s Ikea?”

“Yes, of course,” she responded, as though I was nuts for asking.

But I guess anything goes nowadays when it comes to names. I shouldn’t have been surprised about a child sharing the same moniker as a Swedish store, particularly after reading in the news that someone named their baby Hashtag, inspired by a commonly-used social media symbol.

And who am I to judge? Once upon a time I was considered weird for the name I had chosen for my firstborn.

“Buster is a dog’s name,” I was scolded countless times during my pregnancy when I made the mistake of sharing the name I’d picked out. So what, I thought. It was also the name of a famous actor and an even more famous shoe.

I absolutely loved the name Buster. It was fun and strong and it had character. I wasn’t about to let the opinions of others change my mind. Except there was one opinion that kind of mattered: that of Buster’s dear old dad.

“Let’s think of a few other options and pick one once he’s born,” Paul reasoned. Fine, I thought. He’ll fall in love with the name by then for sure.

But when our beautiful baby boy arrived with his spiky, blonde hair he didn’t look like a Buster to either of us. He looked like a Sam, so that’s what we called him.

“Buster would have been fine,” my friend, who’s a teacher, said about my original choice. “It’s all the purposely misspelled and hard-to-pronounce names that drive me crazy.”

Like Quvenzhane?

My daughter and I recently saw the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild with Quvenzhane Wallis, the youngest Oscar-nominated actor in history, and we immediately nicknamed her Q. It just seemed easier.

If anyone’s to blame for names getting stranger and more unique as the years go by, let’s blame the celebrities.  I mean, really – who was naming their kids anything all that bizarre before Frank Zappa introduced his children Dweezil, Moon Unit, Ahmet and Diva Thin Muffin to the world?

At the time, people were horrified. Since then, many celebrities have followed suit and it’s become the norm in Hollywood.

Names like Alcamy, Apple, Banjo, Bingham, Blue Angel, Blue Ivy, Destry, Exton, Fifi Trixibelle, Jermajesty, Kal-El, Kyd, Maddox, Memphis Eve, Moses, Ocean, Pilot Inspektor, Rocket, Rumer, Seargeoh and the list goes on. Heck, actor Rob Morrow named his child Tu. How would you like to have the name Tu Morrow?

With websites out there dedicated to listing all the strange names that babies are getting saddled with these days, it’s easy to see that this trend is growing. Am I complaining? Nah. Why not get creative and unique when naming our offspring? This certainly can’t be worse than giving them a name that they share with three other kids in the class.

Naming our children is a big responsibility, and everyone’s not going to like what we choose. But as long as we’re picking names we truly love and not just making up stuff so we can laugh at how hilarious we are, we should be okay. If the kid ends up hating their name, which some do, “normal” or not, they can always legally change it to something else later.

Ikea might do that. Except, his name’s not actually Ikea. Turns out it’s Atticus.

I guess I’ll be returning my gift of an Ikea train set and getting him a copy of “To Kill a Mockingbird” instead.

Lori Welbourne is a syndicated columnist. She can be contacted at LoriWelbourne.com 

When a meteor exploded over Russia last week with an estimated force of 20 atomic bombs, I was reminded of how teeny-tiny we Earthlings really are. I didn’t always think of myself in that way though.

As a youngster I thought the world revolved around me and that the moon was following my every move. Whenever I went for an evening drive I’d sit in the back seat of the car gazing out the window, and there it was, right above me. When I went to sleep at night, the moon was always there too, waiting for me to say goodnight before I nodded off.

I remember the first time I laid on the ground looking up at the stars, finally grasping just how vast our world truly is. I don’t remember how old I was at that moment, but I recall, for the first time ever, feeling overwhelmed, as I realized that I was just one of a gazillion creatures in an astronomical solar system we know little about.

I became more interested in the world outside my own after that, and I started to understand how vulnerable we all are. Not just to the mysterious stuff that’s going on beyond our own planet, but to “Mother Nature,” and anything that can happen beyond our control.

Ironically, this newfound realization didn’t scare me, but instead, made me feel more fearless. It still does.

Somehow understanding that I’m just a miniscule piece of the puzzle and not nearly as important as I sometimes think, helps me relax and enjoy life for what it is.

The news of the enormous meteor explosion over Russia, coupled with the news of the gigantic asteroid skimming our planet near Australia hit home and left me pondering my place in the world again.

Who cares if the house is a mess or I’m way behind with work or someone is angry about something I wrote in a column?  I’m just one little ant doing my best on the big old anthill and hoping a giant foot doesn’t come crashing down on me any time soon.

Of course, this perspective never lasts long and I always go back to taking myself more seriously than I ought to. But I like to think that I’m getting better as I age. In many ways I know I am.

As the years go by I care much less what others think, and much more about being true to myself. We may only live once, so we might as well try to live as authentically as we can.

And when it comes to the stress of raising children, living life and working towards big goals, I do everything I can to enjoy the process.  When I fail, I’m lucky to have allies that will help.

“Imagine today is your last day,” one of my friends will say if she knows I’m stressed out about something. “Cherish what’s truly important, because you never know – you could get hit by a bus tomorrow.”

Or a meteor. Or an asteroid.

Remembering that life is a gift and that there’s no guarantee of its length can be like pumping gas into our fuel tank when it start running low. It’s important to keep on the winding road of life, and to thank our beautiful moon as we drive it.

Lori Welbourne is a syndicated columnist. She can be contacted at LoriWelbourne.com 

Watching television was an extremely restricted activity in my house growing up, and for that reason, I couldn’t get enough of it.

My little brother and I weren’t allowed to watch it all the time like our lucky-duck friends were. And, as a double whammy on the meter of unfairness in our lives, our mom and dad were much younger than the parents of our pals, yet they were stricter than all of them.

In grade five I started babysitting my seven-year-old brother in the afternoons when our folks were still at work. Our mom instructed us to do homework after school, and once we finished we could read a book or play a board game. Under no circumstances were we to turn on the “boob tube” that would rot our brains.

But reruns of groovy shows like The Brady Bunch and Bewitched were on at that time, so there was no possible way we could adhere to such an unreasonable rule when left alone like that.

With 12 glorious channels to choose from, there was always something exciting to see on our old black and white, and every day we’d watch it for as long as we could.

An hour or so later, when we heard a car pull into the driveway, we’d quickly run up to the telly, turn the knob to the dreaded “off” position, run back to the couch and crack open our books before our mom or dad even opened the front door.

If our father was the first to arrive home he would sometimes touch the top of the TV as he walked by it. Jeremie and I would hold our breath and look at each other nervously, praying he wouldn’t notice its warmth. He never did.  Years later we found out that he knew exactly what we were up to, he just didn’t mind.

I  now have that same attitude about the television with my own kids, and I allow them to watch it. Within reason.

Sam and Daisy are like my brother and I were. If they had their choice, they’d start their day with the TV on and that thing wouldn’t be turned off until they fell asleep in front of it, well past midnight.

“We cancelled cable the day we became parents,” an acquaintance told me last week. “Children who grow up ‘watchers’ do not become ‘doers’.”

I wonder if there’s statistics to prove that. Probably. There are studies and statistics that can prove just about anything.

All I know is that I don’t believe the TV will render us useless. I was obsessed with it as a kid, but I’ve seen very little of it as an adult since I’m always too busy doing something else.

Yet, despite my lack of tube time, my fascination with pop culture persists. I can thank the Internet for that.

Surfing the web makes it easy to keep up with what’s going on in TV land without having to actually watch it.

If I want to find out who Honey Boo Boo is, I don’t need to look for her show the old fashioned way and watch the darn thing. All I have to do is Google her name and up pop videos – with subtitles – that show me in a matter of minutes.

“I would never have cablevision,” a young friend told me last week. Oh boy, I thought, bracing myself for more judgment.

“Why would I?” he then asked. “I can get anything I want from Netflix and YouTube.”

Good idea. I should look up The Brady Bunch and Bewitched to show my kids. Now that would be groovy.

Lori Welbourne is a syndicated columnist. She can be contacted at LoriWelbourne.com