so i was flipping through the channels the other day, being lazy, and i stopped to watch a few minutes of happy days. in which richie meets a girl at the movie theater and brings her home for dinner while fonzie fixes her car. and howard gets mad because she's a beatnik, and what was richie thinking inviting a beatnik into his home?
and it got me thinking. how thrilled most parents would probably be now, if the worst sort of person their children encountered and brought home was a beatnik. not a thug, not a crackhead, not the kid with his own liquor cabinet in his locker. not a pedophile, a cult member, or a date rapist. a beatnik.
think about it. beatniks are literate. in an age of video games and television, they could awaken in your child a love of literature and the life of the mind. yeah they might smoke a little pot, but it's all for the expansion of consciousness anyway, and not to forget their miserable existences, right? picture marian saying "at least they're not smoking crack, howard, you can at least be thankful for that."
so am i saying that the 50s were better and simpler times and oh how lovely if we were able to go back? hell no, and anyone who tells you that is a liar. there were still date rapists and pedophiles and cult members in the 50s. the kid with his own liquor cabinet still had one back then. institutionalized racism was accepted, gay people were so far in the closet even the moths couldn't find them, and women were popping little yellow pills like candy. but think about it, the illusion of safety at least persisted. that might have been nice.
then again, beatniks weren't welcome in a decent home back then. i might have been lonely...
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