I think it was the Vienna Philharmonic.

We used to watch them on TV for hours. They performed every year at the New Year’s Concert in the Musikverein, when culture was regularly broadcast.

And then we discovered Classic Arts Showcase. That broadcasts 24 hours at no charge, independently funded so they didn’t need commercials, and we saw it on Channel 28, PBS, which showed it every night from midnight until 4:00 in the morning. It was the time of night when they thought nobody was watching, not Prime Time, but they flaunted the 24 hours and filled the time with leftovers. They showed excerpts from “all the arts,” symphony, opera, ballet, films, recitals, visual art, and we watched obsessively until one of us fell asleep.

If it was Shirley who nodded off first, I might turn off the TV and try to slink up to bed for a few precious hours of sleep until I got up early to get to school and start the day teaching.

But sometimes the silence would wake her up, and she’d say, “Turn it back on! I’m watching!”

Sometimes I would be the one to fall asleep first, and then she would cover me with a blanket and cradle my head in her lap.

We were such a pair! We didn’t want to be anywhere else if we were not together.

Television helped form my exposure to culture and gave the basis for comparative judgment.

I may have been the first to notice, I think I was, that there were no women in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, all the great orchestras of the world, had women, sometimes even first chair section leaders, to show they were integrated. There were more women than there were non-white players, but every now and then, to silence the critics, you’d see an aberration.

But not in the Vienna Philharmonic! It seems they took a vote and said NO. They were Old School by their own interpretation. Many players were actually old.

I can only imagine the reasons. For some, it was misogyny. They felt that lowly women couldn’t possibly perform up to standard. I remember when Ginette Neveu was the only female violinist, and now the new crop outnumbers the men.

It may very likely have been that women in the orchestra would distract the men from keeping their mind on the music, and the women wore dresses that showed a bit of leg, especially the cellists.

I’ve always loved women generically, one in particular. Equality should extend in all ways that matter.

Recently, even Vienna broke the gender barrier, and token women are sprinkled and scattered throughout.

Nowadays, thanks to the internet or cable or streaming or whatever advancement in this century allows you to watch infinite channels all day every day, it’s a different world.

I’m from the last century, born and bred, a throwback, a holdover. The 20th is/was my century, but I’m trying to adapt. Slowly I learn, step by step. And now that I’m retired, with Shirley gone, I can watch Classic Arts anytime, and imagine myself on the couch with her, cradling my head in her lap.