Beaver's House

        I am from the generation who grew up watching Leave It To Beaver.   The show was a family-oriented sitcom, but as a child, I did not really view it as funny.  To me the Cleaver family was the quintessential American family, the standard that everyone else aspired to.  They had it all, good looks, a beautiful home, and an enviable lifestyle.  Of course, they were fiction, but kids don’t necessarily understand that fact.  I knew they were actors playing parts, but somehow I believed that somewhere families like that really existed.  Not that anything was wrong with my own family, but they sure did not resemble the Cleavers.

                First of all, there was Ward Cleaver.  He wore a tie to the dinner table!  I grew up on a farm, and the only men I saw in suits and ties were in church.  Even my male teachers dressed fairly casually. It was never clear from the show what Ward’s job was, but he apparently had authority.  As much as I admired him, Ward Cleaver scared me.  He brought that authoritarian style home and seemed unnecessarily stern.  Wally and Beaver were wary of him, and even June seemed to tiptoe around and defer to him.  He might have looked good, but I would not have really wanted to live with him.

                I could relate a little better to June Cleaver.  Not many of the women I knew were as thin and stylish, but they did at least wear those shirtwaist dresses and sometimes pearls.  June was a housewife like most of the mothers I knew; it is just that like June herself, her house was always perfect.  Speaking of her house, viewers who followed the show from its inception remember when the Cleavers bought a new house and moved.  It was a television event when the Cleavers moved into a beautiful Colonial-style house on Pine Street.

                The house was a large two-story house in a well-manicured neighborhood with sidewalks in front.  It was a symbol of success; the Cleavers had arrived.  Oh how I coveted that house! Now there is a house for sale in our town that looks exactly like the Leave It to Beaver house, at least on the outside.  I can just see myself living there; it would be like a childhood fantasy come true.  I would put on my shirtwaist dress (even though I lack a waist) and my pearls and serve an elegant dinner.  Of course, there would be one hitch in my fantasy---I’m afraid Doug would refuse to wear a tie to dinner.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Summer being the time for travel, Doug and I recently journeyed back in time with a trip to Louisiana.  We began our journey with a flight to New Orleans.  We landed at the Crescent City on a Saturday evening, and after quickly renting a car and checking into a hotel, we made our way into the city.  We spent the evening touring the French Quarter and eating some of New Orleans’ legendary seafood.  However, the next day was the real beginning of our history adventure.

                We rose early (for vacation that is) and traveled to the National WWII Museum. What an emotional journey!  As soon as we walked in, we faced a very realistic exhibit of a troop train, and unexpectedly I began to cry.  Every WWII veteran I have spoken to has begun his story with a ride on a troop train.  Those trains, scenes of poignant departures, have become symbols for the tremendous changes our nation underwent during an uncertain, chaotic time.

                After the troop train exhibit, we immersed ourselves in the past with videos, pictures, artifacts, and personal stories of soldiers and people on the home front.  We spent the entire day and barely scratched the surface of this amazing museum. We truly felt consumed by World War II.

                The next day we toured two antebellum plantations.  The most impressive one, Rosedown, is operated by the Louisiana State Park Service.  It was the home of Daniel and Martha Turnbull who were cotton planters and owners of 450 slaves, a number difficult to wrap one’s mind around.  The Turnbulls were exceedingly wealthy and owed much of their splendid lifestyle to the labor of enslaved people.  That being said, life was difficult for most people during those days.  The Turnbulls lost two of their three children to disease and drowning and endured the uncertainty of the Civil War.  Women’s lives were particularly difficult given the cultural restrictions imposed on them.  Imagine sitting in an un-air-conditioned house in the middle of a humid Louisiana summer while laced up in a corset.

                The highlight of the trip for Doug was Port Hudson State Historic Site, the site of a 48-day Civil War Battle. Operated by the Louisiana State Park Service, the site includes a museum, living history programs, and six miles of walking trails that take visitors through the areas of intense battle.  However, the thing that made this particular site so meaningful was the fact that Doug found where his great, great grandfather fought with the Arkansas Infantry.

                Thus ended the perfect vacation for us---one steeped in history and enhanced with delicious local cuisine.