Watching television isn’t as much fun as it used to be.

Just the other night I watched Finding Your Roots and American Experience on PBS and Booze Traveler on Travel Channel.  Janet and I had unusual tastes in tube entertainment.  Most of the time she sat there with a laptop computer so that if we heard some information we had not heard of or which sparked a question about a related topic she would look it up.

On Finding Your Roots one of the celebrities undergoing the genealogical investigation was Patricia Arquette.  Normally the four acting Arquette siblings would not be of much interest, but then host Louis Gates began talking about their grandfather Cliff Arquette.  He was a regular on talk and game shows in the 50s and 60s in the country persona Charlie Weaver.  I looked over to the sofa where Janet always sat.

“I didn’t know they were related to Cliff Arquette.”

But I stopped before the words came out because she wasn’t there.

The subject of American Experience episode was the trial of Leopold and Loeb, two rich teen-aged boys who killed a boy just for the thrill of it in the 1920s.  Clarence Darrow—better known as the lawyer in the Scopes Monkey Trial—headed their defense.

Once again I looked over to comment that I didn’t know Darrow was connected to Leopold and Loeb but stopped.

She wasn’t there.

The third show Booze Traveler visited several bars operating out of spaces that used to be speakeasies.  One of them had a mahogany slide which was the only entrance.

I was about to ask Janet if she would go down the slide for a good cocktail, but then I remembered.

She wasn’t there.

I know I have to get used to the empty sofa, and it won’t be easy.  I suppose the best way to accept it is to continue watching the shows we enjoyed together.  And go ahead and ask those questions.  I have a pretty good idea what her answer would be, anyway.