I like to be a passenger in a car as much as often because you get to look out the window and see more things then when you are driving. I would look at people, cars, scenery and one day I saw a TV in the back of a minivan.

The kids who were watching the screen seemed content. They seemed quiet and they just were fascinated with what was on the screen. It looked like one of those Disney movies. The parents were upfront occasionally looking back to see what their kids were doing but everybody seemed content.

When I was growing up there was no TV movies to watch. I would sit bored on long trips aggravating my brother and he would scream at me in turn. This was our way of passing the time. My mother and dad were constantly telling us to sit up and stop fighting and it was this routine that I had to look forward to each family vacation.

So looking at this new type of device that made kids act more sanely was amazing. I looked around the car I was in and saw the only thing that I had that was comparable to the TV screen. It was a science fiction book I had rented from the library. I picked it up and started reading and this did help but I couldn’t stop thinking about those kids and the TV screen, was it the future of babysitting? I have a son now and I can honestly say that TV is the babysitter of our generation. You ship your kids to daycare and all they do is watch Barney the dinosaur or Sesame Street. It is good learning but we are kind of robbing them of the value of reading. So I looked over at the van again and I see one of the kids looking at me he waves and then turns back to the screen.

Here was the future, kids having fun on a road trip. It was a life altering thought.