when pygmies roamed my television

There was a moment at work a couple of weeks ago when I brought up that house with secret passageways that Ma'am, George, and Webster went to live in after Webster burned down their apartment. The conversation had been about houses with secret passageways, and I thought it relevant to rummage through my damaged mind and surface with an otherwise useless television reference. Anyway, the infusion Webster garnered me only silence and confused stares. I think there were even tumbleweeds.

Nervously, I persisted.

"No one else remembers that?" I asked. "There were all these secret passageways and a room upstairs that the landlords strictly forbade Webster and the Papadopouloses--or Papadopouli, if you prefer--from entering."

Still silent. By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, I didn't actually use "forbade" in conversation.

"There was even a running gag in which Webster would move from floor to floor by using the dumbwaiter," I added.

They recalled there being a Webster, but none of them admitted to having watched it. Which is understandable, as I am younger than most of the folks I work with. White families adopting undersized black children was not a staple of their formative television watching years. No, they were bred on talking horses, the tomfoolery of redheads and their Cuban bandleaders, and a more demure Mary Tyler Moore who watched in feigned agony as her husband tripped over the same damn ottoman each and every week.

Let it be known that I also have nothing but love for these older programs and that they probably overflow more of my mental filing cabinets than time I spent with my grandparents or any number of assorted conversation topics. However, The Andy Griffith Show never taught me how to escape from the old pervert at the bike shop or deal with a newly diabetic Ben Vereen. Life is all about variety, people, and there is nothing wrong with admitting that you've probably seen every episode of Webster and Diff'rent Strokes multiple times.

Well, perhaps there is. I'm not quite so proud of myself now that I see the admission there on the screen, but there's nothing to be done about it now. Maybe I'll take the dog for an extra walk or feed an old person or do any number of the things that all those Mormon commercials told me to do.

But I digress.

My conversation at work presented a problem. Even my younger coworkers who admitted to having actually watched Webster from time to time didn't remember the house with the secret passageways, and I was left to wonder if I had imagined or hallucinated entire seasons of the program.

Enter the Internet. This site helped to verify that I still have a grasp on sanity. Also, it proves that someone else wasted a great deal of time in front of the television and then a great deal more in front of their computers documenting it, and that, for some reason, makes me feel not as bad.