Having a love-hate relationship with your TV? Tell me about it. Can't live with it--can't live without it, right? When my son was about age nine, he shared an experience he had while reading. He told me about reading something and, "... it was almost like being there". He's since become an avid reader which has helped him in all areas of study. A real parent's dream.

So what does this have to do with TV? I know, I know, this topic has been beaten to death; we watch too much television, it rules our lives and it's overloaded with sex, violence and materialism. Everyone's heard this all before; how the television replaced the family hearth, etc., etc.

But my son's reading experience continues to stick with me and make me look at what has happened to my own imagination... and why. You know, words like imagination and imagery come from the basic word "image". I know that's obvious, but I haven't always perceived those words as being related.

Ever wonder about what life was like before TV? Do you think that people were bored out of their skulls, sitting in their living rooms staring at the wall waiting for a solution to be invented? It couldn't have been like that... people whittled and played checkers a lot, right? And since they didn't have microwave ovens yet either, they spent lots of time cooking, right?

It's also a common clich