Learning life lessons from the Beav (and Wally) for our little Beav (and Wally)

My boys really are Wally and the Beav.  About the same age difference, about the same personalities.

Lincoln has begun to watch reruns of Leave It To Beaver on the TV Land channel. I say "reruns" because I am fairly sure that there have not been any new episodes in over 50 years, besides of course, the The New Leave It To Beaver Show (with Eddie Haskle in a staring role), that was on in the mid 80's.

In the most recent episode that Lincoln and I watched, Beaver and his pal Lumpy, found an old Nordic pipe that his father had received from a friend as a souvenir. They then stuffed the pipe with coffee and attempted to smoke it. Lincoln found this act to be especially offensive as the boys were clearly violating three definitive laws of adolescence - at the same time: drinking coffee, lighting matches and smoking. The ultimate trifecta of evil! Filthy and despicable. Simply a vile act which is incomprehensible to an innocent, seven year old mind.

Now, "Lumpy" may be the worst childhood nickname of all time. The only name I can think would be worse for a kid is "Chunk" from the Goonies. How in the world is any kid named "Lumpy" or "Chunk" ever supposed to get a girl to date him? I do however, enjoy eating at Lumpy's occasionally. (A private club for members only.) I have not yet tried the restaurant "Chunky's", nor do I think I would like to. "They have the best beef strogonauf down at Chunky's..." Uh, no thanks.

Lumpy, unsatisfied with smoking coffee grounds, went home and obtained old, discarded tobacco from his parent's ash trays. Beaver then sat with him on the floor of the kitchen and enjoyed a good, old fashioned smoke. Lincoln, still a little flabbergasted at the thought of the boys smoking, was pleased to hear that it gave the Beav a stomach ache. However, he was a little dumbfounded and angry that Beaver let Wally take the fall for the smoking.

Given that Calder's personality very much matches the Beaver's and Lincoln's very much matches Wally's, I believe that in Lincoln's mind he could foresee this exact situation unfold in the future - and that he would someday have to take the blame for Calder's smoking. That reminds me, I have been meaning to give my gigantic Nordic pipe to the D.I. Does the D.I. accept pipes? What about bongs? Nordic bongs?

During the episode I tried to point out to Lincoln how Wally and the Beav stayed seated during the entire evening meal; how they politely asked to be excused, and especially how the brothers did not tease each other to incite painful, high pitched squealing from their sibling. Lincoln informed me that he was not impressed and told me that normal kids do not act this way. Clearly, in effort to raise more well rounded children, we need to watch this show more often.

What I would really like to see is June Cleaver on Wife Swap. I can picture it now - June is sent to a trailer park just outside of Detroit. Her new home is filled with 8 cats, a screaming, snotty nosed kid waddling around in a poopy diaper while her new husband wipes potato chip crumbs off his chest onto the living room floor. Who wouldn't pay to see her adapt to this new habitat? Why didn't they have reality TV back in the 50's?

Watching Leave It To Beaver is a little like watching an English comedy. Many of the phrases and slang terms seemed to be something out of a parallel universe. One of the conversations on the show went something like this:

Beaver: Golly Ge, I didn't mean to rat on Lumpy. We were just messin around and now he's in a hunka trouble. We were just goofing and now I feel just crummy.

Wally: Oh cut the gas Beaver. Don't get so frosted. Lumpy's a bit kookie but he will he won't sweat it. He's no wet rag.

It's a miracle Lincoln understood a thing that was going on.

It was a good thing we watched it on a Monday night because we passed it off as a family home evening lesson. Perhaps we should start spending every Monday night with the Cleaver family. I can't wait to see what other life lessons the Cleavers have in store and to see what kind of trouble our own Wally and Beaver might get into in the future.  (I'll let you figure out which one is Wally and which one is Beaver.)