After a long day, with a few extra hours at work at the office, I drove home to eat a bowl of popcorn. It was lightly flurrying when I arrived home. After a pleasant hour and a half with my cat, wife, popcorn, and the local and national news, it suddenly occurred to me that I had forgotten to write and submit this article. Thanks to a phone conversation earlier this evening with a co-worker, I did have a topic for you, Faithful Reader. There are times that inspiration just doesn’t seem to find me, but luckily due to the lateness of the hour I don’t have writer’s block.
So there I was, with my napping cat snuggled next to the calf of my left leg on the loveseat footstool, my wife on my right side with her sleepy head resting on my shoulder—I abandoned them both to go out into the cold and return to work to write and submit this article.
It was a pleasant drive. It was flurrying much harder than when I arrived home, and it is so pretty to watch snow in the headlights as you drive (if there is no imminent danger). To add to the beauty of this season, I was listening to Christmas music on the local radio station that transmits the Bible Broadcasting Network (WYFC, Clinton/Knoxville, 95.3 FM). This station plays only Christian Christmas music throughout the month of December each year.
I am not a captive audience for BBN, as I have free choice to turn it off or change stations at will. You, Faithful Reader, are not a captive audience to my articles, for you have free choice whether you read them or not, and that makes me all the more appreciative of those of you who choose to spend a few minutes loafing in the land of the written word with me each week.
The first example that comes to my mind when I think of a captive audience is kindergarten through twelfth grade education. In some form—whether it be public, private, charter, virtual, magnet, homeschool, or a homebound situation—the law demands that children in Tennessee attend school until age eighteen. I predict as long as there are men and women who have children that there will, per the law, be a requirement that those children be educated. The children are, in effect, a captive audience to educators.
That’s good for those who, like me, chose to be trained in education and certified as teachers. If I behave myself, I’m pretty much ensured to have some form of job opportunity related to educating students between the ages of six to eighteen in my areas of certification. I am captive to keep my licensure up to date or forfeit my right to educate.
It is so much harder for those who are self-employed. Such people are dependent (captivated, I might say) upon their customers bringing business to them. I don’t know of any vocation in which only one person can provide a service. It might be easier to become a big frog in a little pond, but I’ve noticed that when someone seems to hit upon a bright, novel idea, it is not long before competition rears its ugly head. Rarely, if ever, does a self-employed individual have a captive audience, though the self-employed are captive to their customers.
Yet another example of a captive audience would be the one at Folsom State Prison in California on January 13, 1968. Wikipedia will tell you that Johnny Cash performed two shows there and recorded an album that consisted of fifteen tracks from the first show and two tracks from the second. I remember reading somewhere in my dim past that one writer described how chilling it was to hear the prisoners cheer when Cash sang the line in “Folsom Prison Blues”—“. . . I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die . . .” Sure enough, if you listen to the live recording, you can hear the prisoners cheering in the background. Chilling indeed.
I have one final example to share of a captive audience. A friend of mine once told me that she attended a church service. The pastor proceeded during his sermon to expound upon certain political beliefs that she did not share. She was so disturbed by the experience that she determined she would leave the church. She exited the sanctuary, only to discover that for security reasons the exit doors were locked from the inside! God might have condoned her leaving, but the church staff seemed to have other ideas! She had no idea that she was part of a captive audience until she attempted to make her great escape.
Who knows, Faithful Reader, just how many captive audiences we are a part of unaware. It reminds me of the cliché, “Nothing’s for sure, but death and taxes.”
And on that cheerful note I take my leave of you this week. If any of you would like to inspire me by suggesting a topic for a future article, I would love to hear from you. Until next time, I leave you with another point to ponder from the email world.

Ever wonder why the word funeral starts with FUN?

I’m sure the corpse is not laughing!!!!!