Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/18418
Goodnight Mrs. Cleaver by PITT DICKEY America’s mom, June Cleaver, sometimes known as Barbara Billingsley, died last week. The most popular movie in America last week was Jack Ass 3D. Could there be any clearer sign that we have reached the Apocalypse? June is gone. Jack Ass is triumphant. Yikes! We need Lord Cornwallis’ band to rise from the dead and play “The World Turned Upside Down” as it did when the British surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown which also took place last week in the year 1781. A lot of history occurred in October; not all of it is good. Jack Ass 3D, for those of you who don’t keep up with such things, is about three guys who do stupid painful things to themselves for the amusement of the masses. The movie made $50 million in its opening weekend. June would not have approved of Jack Ass 3D. Perhaps it is just as well that she didn’t live to see what now passes for entertainment in America. Barbara Billingsley was 94 years old. She moved on to the great Mayfi eld in the sky, reunited once again with Ward, leaving the rest of us back on Earth for the time being. I am going to miss her, perhaps you will, too. She ruled the airwaves in the mid 1950s to early ‘60s as the perfect mom. She cleaned the house wearing pearls and high heels. She provided wise and kind parenting advice to Wally and the Beaver. No matter what goofy thing the Beaver did, at most June would be disappointed but never angry. Even when the Beaver got stuck in a giant coffee cup on a billboard she still loved him. Because she loved the Beaver, she loved us. She could save the boys from the wrath of Ward when they had done something really stupid. And now she is gone. What a bummer. The black and white world of Leave it to Beaver will live on in reruns until we run out of electricity. Anyone who has lost their own mother knows that life will never be the same without mom and now without June Cleaver around. Let us consider for a moment the immortal words of Kinky Friedman who wrote the classic song, “Somethins Wrong with the Beaver.” Kinky’s song imagined what would have happened if Beaver Cleaver had overdosed on illicit drugs and June found him in his bunk bed upstairs. “She climbed the stairs that mornin/Found him rather pale/His eyes they were the color/Of half-drunk ginger ale/Faithful as a Magnavox/Hung-up on a song/She cried down to the breakfast nook/Ward, there’s something wrong with the Beaver/ The Beaver I believe-uh is gone.” Back in the early ‘70s, certain Baby Boomers, myself included, thought this song was funny, mocking the white bread make believe world of Leave it to Beaver. With the departure of June Cleaver, the song doesn’t seem so funny now. Billingsley’s greatest movie role was a cameo in the classic movie Airplane. The pilots fall ill and the plane is in trouble. A stewardess is unable to communicate with two black passengers who speak only jive. Billingsley volunteers to help with the communication gap by speaking the deathless line, “Oh stewardess! I speak jive.” She advises the ill black passenger that some medicine is coming by telling him “Jus’ hang loose blood. She gonna catch ya up on da’ rebound on da’ med side.” Jive dude #2 replies “What it is, big mama? My mama no raise no dummies. I dug her rap.” Barbara replies “Cut me some slack, Jack! Chump don’ want no help, chump don’t get da help! Jive-ass dude don’t got no brains anyhow! Hmmph!” What could possibly be better than seeing June Cleaver say “Chump don’ want no help, chump don’t get da help?” It was a moment of comedy gold in cinema history that will live forever in our hearts and minds. June was the greatest. But now June has left the building taking the last shreds of our childhood with her. Somewhere Eddie Haskell is crying. Good night, Mrs. Cleaver. Good night. PITT DICKEY, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. 8 UCW OCTOBER 27 - NOVEMBER 2, 2010 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM