I am, still, a fan of Leave it to Beaver.
Every lunchtime in grade school, I would head home to ingest a can of the Chef Boyardee on offer, plop down on a brown bean bag chair in front of the set, and gaze rapturously into the Cleaver's black and white wonder world of hi-jinx and mayhem.
Less than thirty minutes later, I'd have ingested all of the saucy, pasta and tomato concoction, along with a big side order of Life Lessons from the Beaver household.
Neither the pasta nor life lesson du jour sat right — there was always a large and looming concern that I can't but contemplate to this day.
True, many stories today trumpet valueless ness itself as the best value. While Leave it to Beaver themes, ranging from the magical granting of (infantile) wishes to the successes of exchange for hard work and self-sacrifice (neo-Puritan), were if nothing, delicious like freshly baked bread. Like a stuck 45, the viewer (uh, Beaver Cleaver) learned, repeatedly, that if one acts accordingly in a natural, Darwinian fashion, one will be rewarded. Though often, in retrospect, I submit Beaver got nothing but screwed: in terms of allowance, personal time on weekends ("Screw cutting that lawn again, man!"), and not being allowed to choose his own sensible female counterpart, to having his mom roll out a lame, head-braced friend of the family to meet, marry and later spawn with.
After a couple seasons of the show, stewing in preservatives and ruminations, it came to me.
The epiphanic moment arrived just after Beaver was entrusted with Ward's library card to borrow books, but then held onto them seriously past their due date, accumulated monstrous fees, and had the gall to keep all of this from his capable father. (Did we ever find out just what in the hell Dad did down at the mysterious 'office'?)
Why?
Why?
Why would anyone leave anything to the Beaver character, ever?
Oh, a little too consistently, incidents arose where Beaver, knowing fully well the rules and expectations beset upon him, satisfied his taste for mischief, fouled up, caused chaos and bedlam, and brought hurt upon his fellow man.
It almost goes without saying—leather-whippings after-class by the sultry, snug sweater clad, 'you can't go through life hoping others will clean up your mess', Miss Landers—projected brilliantly outside the narrative. I sat each day, eyes glued, and basking in the glow of coming revelation granted by that Bettie Page-esque hottie. The undeniable insight arrived one day, in unison with Beaver's projectile vomiting of a two-day-old-white-bread salmon-sandwich prepared by Wally — the final nail in the coffin of my conjecture.
I take issue with the following demonstrations of behavior drawing into question the act of leaving anything to Beaver (and this is not an exhaustive list):
Wally and Beaver left to care for Puddin, Herb Wilson's four-year-old daughter. (Who in Christ's name would call their kid Puddin? Yuck.) Puddin becomes a handful after she locks herself in the bathroom, and the boys call Gus, the bug-eyed saggy-fleshed fireman, to help extract her. Act of gigantic irresponsibility number one: turning over your child to a curmudgeon. (Even if, the child is desperately dull, whiney, and unable to learn from or recall his mistakes it is still questionable parenting.)
How about the occasions where Beaver relies on donning old pajamas before approaching Ward in the den to either fess up or, explain away an attempt to weasel out of a scheme with which he was involved. Easy: damaged thinking and manipulation played as the "Who, little ole me?" pubescent child card. (Maybe I should sport my cowboy and Indian flannels the next time 'making nice' and apologizing is in order. Actually this does work, but only rarely.)
Another time that revs me up. Beaver returned home from school one day with a black eye. Ward was very upset to learn that Beaver didn't fight back ... until he finds out that was none other than Violet Rutherford who'd walloped his son! Yes, the same grating, loudmouth Medusa (today, leader of an all woman's motorcycle club) who had, in the past, cut down Beaver during classroom interfacing sessions. In Beaver's defense, I submit he had very little emotional support. Ward proceeds to teach Beaver to defend himself against aggressors. Not that old Violet wasn't deserving of a good knock, but exactly what kind of parenting book espouses teaching a 12 year old to beat up on girls?
Later the same day, Beaver and Violet are found playing 'Doctor' together in the park, having all but forgotten the earlier tiff, though remembering all too clearly where one another's private parts were.
A little known fact: Once, Beaver was required to leave the public school system because of his controversial involvement with a radical student magazine. (But, word has it the real investigation concerned complaints of inappropriate intimate cuddlin' sessions with a mildly psychotic janitor named Clayton.)
I introduce another example. Take the time the boys sent away for a genuine, Florida alligator, and conspired to keep it in the bathroom of the family house. Predictably, the 'gator outgrew the bathroom, and they relocated it to the basement and, to the neighborhood kids, charged ten cents for a quick peek. They named him after Captain Jack, a man who owned an alligator farm, and freely dispenses critical information on the care of this new installation to the family. All goes swimmingly, until June finds out. (In the years to come, the Beav and his sidekick brother Wally will unearth Ward's Playboy stash, and charge the neighborhood kids upwards of a sawbuck to get a look at dirty old Violet's developing chest).
Uh, hello? Mail-order, endangered out-of-state reptiles, and credit card theft (using Ward's credit card for the purchase), is wrong. The Beav should have been sent packing to an excruciatingly, rule-oriented community like Dr. Drew's Celeb Rehab, or alternately, a Charm School for Convicts. The latter would see the miscreants chained to other children in orange jumpsuits (not pajamas) with unruly dispositions, and forced to dig ditches at highway roadsides under a burning hot California sun. There was a missed lesson there about the merits of discipline over coddling.
I hold firm — leaving it to "The Beaver" was a horror; a road show exhibition of what NOT to do — but of course, we all dedicated (ancient) viewers know this now.
I identify with, err, take issue with how infantile is 'the Beav'. Beaver has Ill Will o-plenty, but wishes none upon others? He is passive disastrous - awash with unfulfilled dreams and desires, but bereft of the self-discipline to make things happen. The result - The Beav, left with no recourse, becomes a dependent conformist. (Yikes.)
Back then, watching crushing, teeth-grinding failure did nothing but illuminate bad behavior to a fragmented pre-teen nation with safe examples more deserved of the appellation Rotten Ways to Handle Life. (Sadly, this title did not wash with the northeastern U.S. pre-screen audiences).
Beaver loves, but his love means little. Unlike Jung's archetypes, guiding Beaver themes moved consciously and unconsciously; collectively and personally.
Consider the reality of just how many people live lives in accordance with a moral barometer promoted in Bible stories, and the role of myths, stories, and guiding narratives that help us "make sense" become sellable.
In lost episodes, Beaver joins up with the conniving grifter, Eddie Haskel - a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby type on a musical journey spreading the word of Jesus. Not the first time good old Eddie hornswoggled a gullible Beaver Cleaver. There were more than a few times Beaver believed in his bumbling schemes and later paid the price.
Not the brightest bulb in the ship's chandelier was Beaver.
When Aunt Martha gives Beaver a family heirloom ring, and specifically instructs him not to wear it to school, he ties it to a string, and wears it around his belt loop. Eventually, the ring does get to his finger, only to become stuck. Wally tells Beaver the only solution is to amputate. Um, not lucid.
(An alternate ending, one where Beaver really cuts his pinky off and lives the rest of his days a nine-figured freak, was lost in a fire at Warner Brothers, or so the studio says. If you're able to get up close you'll be able to see tons of stitches joining finger to hand).
How about when Beaver and Wally decide to sell perfume called Flower for a Dollar a Bottle? The problem: the perfume smells like a dirty catcher's mitt. The boys need to think of a strategy in order to sell twenty-four bottles and win a movie projector. Ward steps in and decides to help the boys by making some calls (and thus, shelters Beaver from the repercussions of his idiotic scheming, and weekly casting him forever the Child.)
I will think twice, no, probably a half dozen times or more when the idea hits me to Leave It To MY child. I'll tread extra carefully in my own home when it comes time to handing over any important concerns to my little guy.
Dragging along all this and more, and as I reflect upon what I now affectionately refer to as my unbearably isolating and disfiguring personality influx, I want to say Thanks, Beaver.
Yes, I thank you little Beaver, Jerry Mathers, as these have proved to be important life lessons for me, a once latchkey kid.
You gave it your best shot, kid. And I thank you for that. I thank you.
While working on his personal memoir, A Long Way From Kind & Pretty, Timber’s been donating his imaginative talents and heartfelt epistles to online and print journals like So New Media, Word Riot, Fresh Yarn Salon, Yankee Pot Roast, Wandering Army, and others. He co-produced and hosted a monthly interactive literary series at The Drake Hotel in Toronto before it became wildly time-consuming and darn-well draining. Tim's presently hunting for a publisher for his compilation of published essays and stories, A Bizarre But Entertaining Life I Seem To Have Survived: True Imaginings From The Dementia Cul De Sac. Check out his Web site at TimberMedia.com.