Crises Resolved in 30 Minutes

Often lately when I wake up on Saturday mornings, I smell Larry's cinnamon-dusted breakfast oatmeal and I hear the music from "The Rifleman," a great, old western television show from some 40 years ago, playing on the TV in the adjacent living room.  Western-theme TV programs were really in vogue in those days, with such shows as "Bonanza," "Wild, Wild West" and "Have Gun Will Travel" airing practically every night of the week.  As I look back, the old black and white TV shows were especially great.  There was a civility to TV shows back then that seems to be increasingly absent today.  Back then, TV was meant to entertain and inform, not to shock.  And as Larry said, each episode of "The Rifleman" featured a crisis, but each crisis was resolved in 30 minutes.  If only all of our crises could be resolved so quickly!  There's something quite comforting about waking up on Saturday mornings, smelling oatmeal and hearing "The Rifleman" on TV, reassuring me that while many things change, some simple, sweet things can remain the same.