A Proust Moment for My Students

I'm going to age myself a bit here -- like you don't already know I'm an old man -- and mention that I grew up in the age of the cathode ray tube.

That's what televisions were made of, back in the day before the liquid crystal and plasma displays we use and take for granted today. I love how light the modern displays are, because those old ones, with the massive glass and metal cathode ray tubes in them, they were *heavy*.

But one quick sentence I spotted on social media helped me remember something about those old CRTs that I'd experienced many times, but had since forgotten:

If you own a CRT, or happen to know someone who does, or are one of those people who collect CRTs, maybe you know this. But here's what this is talking about:

With the television on, the action of that beam of electrons that creates the moving images on the screen, stray electrons in the form of static electricity collect on the outside of the screen. Rub your fingers against the screen and you can feel the static electicity as it discharges into your body, making the screen feel as if it's furry.

When I read that, I was instantly transported back to the house I grew up in, in all its 1970s glory with the orange shag carpeting, the wood paneling, the yellow kitchen with the blue linoluem floor, and that gigantic television, heavy in its wooden case, that did indeed have fur when you wiped your hand across the glass.

Why am I telling you this?

As you write your own essays, I encourage you to immerse yourself in the time you're writing about. Most of you are writing about a memory. I want you to feel that memory. Pull up any photos you might have of that time, that place. Maybe you wrote a social media post about it, or even an old-fashioned letter. Pull up whatever digital or physical memories you have of that event, and remind yourself what it was like being there. Feel that memory's fur.

One more thing, then I'll go:

French writer Marcel Proust wrote a book called "Remembrance of Things Past," a seven-volune(!) work in which Proust recalls memories of his own childhood and growing experiences. One of the most famous passages from the book is known as the "episode of the madeleine."

To summarize (Proust does go on about it), Proust is fretting over a task as he's having a cup of tea. He puts a bit of a cake called a medeleine in the tea and eats it -- triggering a flood of memory of doing the same things as a younger boy in his Aunt Leonie's house.

We all have a Proust moment in our memory, it's just a matter of finding a way to bring it to the surface. For me, it was a social media post about how TVs used to have fur.