Paul Revere had one evening to alert the Minute Men that the Red Coats were coming. He had one horse, one voice and one long of night shouting, “The British are coming. The British are coming.” Those who heard his shout had one night to prepare themselves against the British invasion.
Okay, okay, it didn’t really happen like that. After that famous tea party, folks expected trouble. In the weeks and months before that famous night, they organized into Minute Men ready for battle, and Paul Revere, along with about 40 others – swiftly, quietly, made their way across Middlesex County that night warning of the advancing army.
In a time before electricity, television, telephones, radios or the Internet, one warning sufficed to alert the rebels to prepare for the first forays of the Revolutionary War.
It’s too bad we don’t have any Minute Men left in the United States. For 18-months, across the entire United States, time and again the message has gone out, “It’s coming. It’s coming. The digital age of television is coming Feb. 17. Get ready or your television set will not work.”
Television ads, radio announcements, newspaper stories and an army of announcers speaking at civic clubs spread across the country alerting every possible pocket of people.
Because the government mandated the change, the government even provided coupons to pay for the converters needed. Plenty of folks got the coupons, but, according to the Denver Post, “Federal figures show that fewer than half of the coupons distributed have been redeemed, many of them expiring after their 90-day time limit.”
On Wednesday, President Obama signed a bipartisan law extending the deadline saying, “Millions of Americans, including those in our most vulnerable communities, would have been left in the dark if the conversion had gone on as planned, and this solution is an important step forward as we work to get the nation ready for digital TV.”
Vulnerable communities left in the dark?
This is not a pending crisis. We are talking television.
Anyone can live without television – just ask all the folks who were really left in the dark following this year’s ice storms. They could not get television, radio, computer or enough electricity to warm-up a can of soup, let alone run a TV set. When the temperature dips and the weather yanks down the electric lines, that leaves behind vulnerable communities.
But, the term vulnerable communities hardly applies when – after 18-months of warnings – consumers failed to get a converter box to watch their favorite shows.
The very hint of a flurry of snow and local stores sell out of milk and bread. But an 18-month warning of snowy television screens on Feb. 17 and folks whined as the deadline approached that they needed more time to prepare for the digital age.
With one night of warning, our ancestors equipped themselves and made history. But many of this generation, after 18-months, remain unequipped to watch the history channel.
We didn’t win the Revolutionary War by asking the British to wait because we weren’t quite ready for them to march our way. No, folks jumped out of bed and got busy doing something.
Like procrastinating children, many failed to do their homework, begged for an extension and got it. Those unprepared for Feb. 17, have until June 12 to enter the digital age of television. But, don’t be surprised come Flag Day 2009, that the only colors the procrastinators can see are the flags lining the streets.
At least they won’t be carried by the British.
Note: this column placed in the APA contest.