I sat down with my three young kids on Friday night to watch the last episode of Wheel of Fortune hosted by Pat Sajak. While they didn't think much of it, it was actually quite an emotional experience for me. As a young child, my parents and my sister would walk down to my grandparents house most weeknights. We lived on a farm and my dad put a GATE in on the far side of the pasture where we could cut through to my grandparents house, who lived just on the other side of the farm.
Usually, we got there after dinner about the time Wheel of Fortune came on and there was not a lot of talking or visiting until after we watched it with my grandmother. This was 40 years ago, and Pat Sajak never went anywhere for four decades This type of thing is something my kids will never truly understand, setting aside a time to sit around and watch a TV show, not just with your family, but, with the rest of the country. Everyone trying to guess phrases and quotes, and the idea one guy did this for close half a century is really amazing.
There have been others who were part of my life for decades, Bob Barker, Paul Harey and Alex Trebek come to mind, but Sajak did even longer and his tenure on Wheel Of Fortune matched up perfectly with my childhood. I know that it was not the hardest job, I read he only actually filmed 36 days a year for the show, so he had a lot of free time. It is still something, though, he probably had the money to retire whenever he wanted, but, he kept on doing it year after year.
I didn't watch the show much in my adult life, actually, we only really watched it when we took the family over to my parents house, so my kids had a little of the same experience. (But, if the show was on somewhere, it was almost impossible not to sit down and try and guess a few puzzles.) I am though, just a little sad (OK, a lot) to see something end that was such huge part of my life growing up. Maybe Ryan Seacrest will be able to bring it to a new generation.
