Epistle 9 – Dancing

I’ll bet you children think big time media dancing was created by reality TV, like “Dancing With the Stars” or “So You Think You Can Dance”. Well, it wasn’t. It started with a bunch of teenagers from Philadelphia named Bob and Justine, Kenny and Arlene and Ed and Bunny.

Seems to me there was also a Fran in there somewhere, but I can’t remember who her partner was. Anyway, they wore sport jackets with skinny ties, skirts and dresses, and even two-toned shoes! And as cruel as that sounds, they still had the courage to appear after school on American Bandstand, (yes, another black and white broadcast!) hosted by Dick Clark, who looked younger than the dancers . . . forever.

Long before Dick was America’s biggest deejay, he was Dorian Gray. Of course, his secret to eternal youth was a deal with the Devil, but he sort of let us think it was because he rubbed gallons of Clearasil on his face on his face when he was young. While a nation full of pubescent teenagers were cursed with zits, Dick told us our lives would be perfect if we used Clearasil, maybe even grow up to look like him, which wasn’t a bad idea except for the doofus hairdo.

Anyway, millions of kids—at least those who could tear themselves away from Annette’s blooming hooters—watched the kids from Philly teach the world how to Stroll and Cha Cha. Once a year there was even a dance contest—what a brilliant idea! With numbers on their backs, they danced to Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On and Topsy, Part II. Each week some couples were eliminated, the tension building beyond human endurance.

Because in the 5^th grade I had been forced to walk all the way across the gym and humbly ask that my name be listed on some girl’s dance card, I swore off dancing forever and didn’t really care who won the American Bandstand annual contest.

But I did get to enjoy several skinny Italian teen idols lip-synching their way through their current hit. And Connie Francis dumping me because I had lipstick on my collar, which, of course, was never going to be true because of the half inch of Clearasil on my face. Or maybe it was the Wildroot Cream Oil that kept dripping off my head.

Watching kids from Philadelphia dance was greasy work.

We Will Win

Epistle 7 – Sputnik

I recently learned the remarkable fact that Sputnik, the Russian missile that was the first to orbit the earth, was launched on the same day as Leave It To Beaver. Surely that couldn’t be a coincidence. It must have been all part of the diabolical scheme by the Evil Empire, to “bury us”, as Nikita Khrushchev so delicately put it when he wasn’t pounding his shoe on a poor, unsuspecting UN table. What a classy guy.

Anyway, as the Russians were rocketing into space while we launched several mighty missiles into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida–or worse yet, just had them tip over without ever making it to the beach–the Boomers of America were taught that every other family except theirs behaved like the Cleavers or the Andersons in Father Knows Best. Ward Cleaver’s casual Friday attire was a sweater and a tie.

He smoked a pipe and gave sage advice on everything to his sons, Wally and the Beaver, while June Cleaver toiled away in the kitchen with a flouncy dress, high heels and a lacy apron that never got stained. Wally and the Beaver had neat rooms and actually communicated with each other despite their age difference. They even talked about life with their parents, for God’s sake! If that wasn’t a subversive Russian plot to destroy the fabric of the American family, I don’t know what is.

Well, none of that nonsense in my family, no sir. Children were meant to be seen and not heard, and the seeing part was kept to a bare minimum. If my mother had a flouncy dress, which I doubt, it was carefully stored away for Easter and Christmas, and my father smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes.

My brother was not put on this earth to help guide me through life like Wally did for the Beaver. He was put on this earth to torment me beyond human endurance. For the first several years, my brother and I slept in bunk beds, him on top and me on the bottom so he could accidentally step on me as he climbed up.

I suppose there are still doubters who fail to accept that our idyllic version of the American family was a worthy target for Communist propaganda. Okay, maybe the Beaver wasn’t a Cold War pawn. Maybe every other family really did live like that. Ozzie and Harriett and David and Ricky were the normal ones.

It’s a shame Khrushchev didn’t have more shoes.

We Will Win