There go my favorite PBS shows during the weekends

Dash it all! My cable is enabled--has been for several years since I have a teenaged grandson in the house. They promised and promised: February 19 (or was it the 17th?) AETN's silent screen showed "off the air until 2/19" until 2/17 when even the numbers and letters disappeared.

That took away my habitual viewing of the last 30 minutes of News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Arkansas Week, and The McLaughlin Group, where I could catch the "best" thinking about the week that had been. I liked Tony What-its-name, the spiffy way he dressed, and he was very polite, even when others would butt in or cut him off. I care less--much less, though she is way prettier than Tony--for his replacement. But I digress.

Then on Saturday nights beginning at 8 CST, I usually watched the BritComs, being especially careful to stop whatever I was doing at 9 to catch the Dame Judi Dench one (why I can't ever immediately recall the name is beyond me. It's a phrase from a song and I'm a long-ago music major).

Now, KATV has piously (or something) decided not to cede and vacate its analog space to AETN until the NEW date of June-something. Drat it! and double drat it. I hate it when people change their minds. (Most of the time.) That's why I never liked to schedule extra rehearsals: Get your music learned week by week, people, and we won't need an extra rehearsal. Get ready for the changeover like the publicity said, and too bad if you see snow.(Ooh, Pat how we rant!)

However, let's slow down and settle in (I can hear Denman saying.) Take a deep breath. Put your eyes back to their normal size. What if Mom and Dad still lived here. They didn't have cable, but they would have gotten it if it meant snow on all the channels they DID watch. Both retired, they could afford the $50 a month. If not, one of their children/ grandchildren would have seen that they got it.

It's not like we didn't have enough information and time, for heaven's sake.It got about as bad as campaign ads before the election.

I must protest somehow, not that it'll do any good. Oh, maybe if enough of us scream and holler, it might. Reckon the Ledge can pass a law to force somebody to put AETN back on the air??? Har-de-har-har. On second thought, that might be right down their alley. Let me find my representatives email addresses.