Ahhh. Leave it to Beaver. Make fun of that show if you will, but I learned valuable lessons watching that show as a tot. I recently caught a classic lesson the other day.

Beaver and Larry Mondello (The most 'ethnic' the fifties could get was to include a poor waif of Italian 'extraction', his mom was in fact a dumpy old broad but we never saw his father who was portrayed as some fellow who supposed beat Larry from time to time. You could get the idea that Mr. Mondello was doing three to five on some weapons violation, but how did Mrs. Mondello maintain a house in suburbia, HUH? Oh and most probably, the Mondellos were members of that secret sect known as the Roman Catholic Church.) were the best of friends.

One spring day, (it was always late spring or early summer in those days) the two were innocently bouncing a ball down the street discussing the problems of inflation, when they passed a 'basement apartment'. Now if one ever lived in suburbia in those days, they might object because there are no basement apartments in suburbia. At least no open to the 'street'. A locked rot iron gate kept the public from the entrance to this strange residence.

Well, the gods or fate or just bad luck sent the ball over the gate. This was an omen that something evil would occur. At any moment.

There was the ball sitting innocently at the entrance to a facility that should not exist in the first place. And there were Larry and the Beav peering through the fence. Oh my God (blesses himself) what were the two waifs to do? I mean for all intents and purposes they had lost their ball forever.

Well, Larry lacked initiative. Like all Italians I would guess even though everyone knew they controlled Vegas and the Teamsters.  So the Beav came up with a plan. He would squeeze somehow through this cast iron fence and retrieve the prize. And no one who ever know and all would be well.

So as we all remember, the Beav had a rather large cranial capacity, shall we say, for his body shape, as it were. And of course, as we might have predicted, Beaver got his fat head stuck between two of the iron bars.  Larry tried to separate the bars as did the Beav and the situation only got worse and worse.  Until it was clear that the sun was setting soon.

Now the setting sun was an important omen to Larry Mondello. I mean, after the sun set his father, the Italian, turned into a werewolf and Larry would be beaten within one inch of his life if he was not home before Dad got home.  And probably eaten or tortured or worse.

So Beaver is starting to weep and Larry is starting to cry. And Larry explains that if he does not get home soon, he would be beaten to one inch of his life. And so, out of the blue so to speak Larry says to  Beaver:

SEE YA LATER BEAV!!!!

 And as our unbrave Larry proceeds home to save his own Italian skin so to speak, he begins to sing:

You only hurt, the one you love
The one you should never hurt at all.

Now when Larry gets home, Mrs. Mondello says something like, 'How was your day?''

And Larry had another opportunity to save his friend. And he decided to save his own skin once again because it was apparent that if you would have said something like:

Well Ma, me and the Beave kind of f.....ed up and he got his head stuck in a rot iron fence and we need to contact the authorities in order to see if we can save him from a fate worth than death.

BUT NOOOOOOOO. What does this cowardly Italian say. Its all OK Ma. And leaves it at that.

Well, you can imagine the alarm that arrives at the door of the Cleavers that night. I mean Father comes home and "....where is the Beaver?"

Oh my goodness, he is not here replies June.

And soon they have a powow and June thinks, I am sure the Beaver was with that Italian Larry guy recently. Let us approach Larry's Parents, even though we know they are ethnic because we must brave the elements-and I mean all the elements-in order to ascertain what happened to the Beaver.

Well, you can imagine, they arrive at the ethnic homestead and the frumpy Mrs. Mondello appears because the wolfman evidently has not returned that evening and answers the door.

Well, there is an intense discussion and Larry is called from his room, (which probably is unkempt and disgusting and under intense interrogation, Larry gives it up so to speak.

The Beaver has his head stuck in a rot iron fence and may have been eaten by wild dogs and I am so sorry that I did not alert the authorities and that is because my Italian father is a werewolf and would have beaten me within an inch of my life.

Well, in 1950's language, Ward says something like who gives a shit about you? And they proceed to gather up Larry and make them find out where the Beaver is.

And thank god for the Fire Department (Blesses himself) and Beaver is saved.

THE END.

Boy, I tell you, at age eight, I was relieved. Everything was going to be ok.

How can I apply the lessons that I learned from that 1950's reality show? Well let me tell you I can apply them in a number of ways.

1. Mitchell

Dicky Nixon and Mitchell were the best of friends and they were not even ethic. As a matter of fact they both despised ethnic peoples.

And dicky and mitchell used to play all the time together. And one day, dicky and mitchell were bouncing a ball down the street and it fell into a basement apartment known as watergate.

And, you guessed it, Mitchell got his head stuck in the rot iron fence and dicky began crying and mitchell began crying and they both thought everything would be ok. And it was not the case.

And so after hours and days and weeks, dicky said:

SEE YA LATER BEAV.


2. Bernie Madoff

Now what our Bernie did was very terrible indeed. People like Elie Weisel who wanted to right the wrongs of the evil Nazis was a good friend of Bernie.  And Elie and Bernie were kind of walking down the street one fine Spring Day and Elie said:

You know Bernie.  I have millions of dollars coming in to find old Nazis that used to torture people, you know like Cheney, and I need to find a fund to invest all this money so that we can continue to go after the people that Pat Buchanan thinks are good people.

Well, Bernie says, Beave... er....Elie...give me the monies and I will work to invest those monies and you shall be able to destroy all the old Nazis, make things right, and really piss off Pat Buchanan.

Now, this is what really happened. Bernie who was kind of ethnic also but remember so was Elie but not Pat, was not really good at this investment kind of stuff.  So Bernie kind of took in a lot of money I mean more money that Mrs. Mondello or even Ward could ever dream of.  And Bernie kind of had a wife who needed at least ten mill a year just to keep things going because she refused to rent underground apartments even when they are located in suburbia, and so Bernie kind of spent a lot of money.

Anyway, Elie  kind of got his head stuck in a rot iron gate and Bernie wanted to help Elie but he knew that he would someday be discovered and so Bernie kept giving his family money and quit giving Elie any 'return on his investment'.

And finally at some point, Bernie looked at Elie and said:

See ya later Beav.


3.  Libby

Now one day dicky c. met his friend Libby and said, hey libby, work for me and we shall control the country and defense spending and all sorts of fun things.  And Libby said, hey that sounds like fun dicky.

And so dicky and libby were having all this fun. They were cheating the budget people out of hundreds of billions of dollars and giving all these monies to their best of friends. I mean they were bouncing all sorts of balls down the street all year long and then one day, one of the balls found itself in a basement apartment.

And libby got his head caught in the grate trying to retrieve the ball. And libby began crying and dicky began snarling (dicky was not very good at crying) and dicky said,

SEE YA LATER BEAV.

And libby stayed stuck in the fence until the feds came by and picked him up and threatended to send him to the clink and take away his license to bounce balls anymore.

And they all sang:

You only hurt the one you love
The one, you should not hurt at all

THE END