Can YOU tell ME how to get to Sesame Street?

I am from the first generation of Sesame Street viewers, having been two years old (and able to walk to the TV and put the show on) when it premiered in 1969. I can attest to the fact that TV can cause jealousy and anger due to my experiences with Sesame Street (the original and best example of educational television worldwide).

I yearned to be on Sesame Street, hanging out with Mr. Hooper, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, and eating cookies with the Cookie Monster. After all, each episode had kids like me on the set.

What irked me was the opening song in which kids sing while running through fields: "Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?" Then, similar kids would be on the set playing, partying, and learning with the Muppets.

What got me angrier and angrier was that these kids were singing a song asking ME if I knew how to get to Sesame Street, when it was obvious that they were literally the insiders: inside the TV, inside the show, and on the opening credits, taunting me with their privilege and insider status, while I was on the outside.

Every episode, I'd watch, wondering how I could get to Sesame Street, and I never found out.

Epilogue: In the early 1990s after I became an adult, I stumbled onto Sesame Street, while applying for a job at the Children's Television Workshop, the Producer of Sesame Street. It turns out that this place is inside a drab beige 1960s era building across the street from Lincoln Center. No hills or fields there; just traffic. It seemed obvious that Sesame Street was actually mired in unions, bureaucracy, paperwork, and disgruntled clockwatching employees.

Perhaps my childhood's initial brush with disappointment was for the best. Subsequently, as an adult, I applied twice for positions at CTW, never to be hired. Perhaps that was for the best.