Remembering Sputnik and June Cleaver

            On October 4, 1957, two significant events occurred that had a dramatic impact on the United States of America.  First, the Russians launched Sputnik.  And second, Leave It To Beaver premiered on the CBS Television Network. 

            These two disparate events evidenced a contradiction in the American psyche in the 1950s.  On one hand, it was an age of anxiety.  And on the other hand, it was an era of wonderful innocence.   

            Sputnik represented our fears.  We Americans were literally scared to death.  Just twelve years after the end of World War II, we feared the beginning of World War III, and millions of us saw Sputnik as the first shot in that war.

            I was in kindergarten in the fall of 1957, and part of our daily class drill was to practice crawling under our desks in case the Russians bombed us from outer space.  How we thought that a tiny little wooden desk would protect us from an atomic bomb being dropped from Sputnik is beyond me, but my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Fussell, told us to “duck and cover”, so we did.  

            When my Mom and Dad and I attended the Mid-South Fair in September of 1957, we toured a model fallout shelter.  We had heard that rich people across the country were digging these shelters in their backyards so that when the Russians pushed the atomic bomb off Sputnik, they (the rich folks, not the Russians) could run to their backyard, scurry down into the shelter, survive the atomic blast, and then stay there until nuclear winter was over.   

            The model underground shelter at the Mid-South Fair was twice as big as our above-ground house, and it was full of enough food to feed Mom and Dad and me for the rest of our lives.  But we knew we couldn’t afford to build one, and besides, Mom and Dad thought the whole thing was silly.  “If the Russians attack us, we’ll just say a prayer and let the Lord take us home,” Dad said, and Momma agreed.   

            While Sputnik represented our fears, Leave It To Beaver represented our hopes.  The same night Sputnik started orbiting the earth, the Cleaver family—Ward, June, Wally and the Beav—moved into our neighborhood.  They didn’t move in the house next door or across the street.  They moved into our living room, inside our Zenith TV set. 

            Leave It To Beaver was the latest “family sitcom” to appear in our living room.  I had spent the first five years of my life seeing other TV families including the Ricardos (Ricky, Lucy and Little Ricky), the Nelsons (Ozzie, Harriet, Dave and Ricky), and the Andersons (Jim, Margaret, Bud, and Katie).  There would be more TV families to come, including the Taylors (Andy, Opie and Aunt Bea) the Williams (Danny, Katherine, Rusty, Linda, and Uncle Tonoose), and the Cartwrights (Ben, Adam, Hoss, Little Joe and Hop Sing).  But the Cleavers were different from other TV families.  They weren’t entertainers or cowboys.  They didn’t live in New York City or on the Ponderosa.  They were very much like Mom and Dad and me.  They really could have been our next door neighbors. 

            The Ricardos lived in a New York high rise with Fred and Ethel, and Ricky worked at the Tropicana Nightclub.  But the Cleavers lived in a town very much like Memphis, on a street very much like St. Charles Drive, the street where I learned to ride a bike and eventually a skateboard.   

            Little Ricky Ricardo did not have kids in his Manhattan neighborhood.  I don’t recall

Fred Mertz, Jr.  But Wally and Beaver Cleaver had lots of friends, and they reminded me of the kids in my neighborhood.  There was the Beaver’s best friend, Lumpy Rutherford.  And, there was Wally’s best friend, the two-faced Eddie Haskell, who was the epitome of good manners when in the presence of Ward and June Cleaver, and then a complete jerk to the Beaver as soon as the adults left the room. 

            But what really made the Cleavers seem so real were the parents, Ward and June.   

            Ward wore gray flannel suits, just like my Dad.  He would go to the office, every morning, just like my Dad.  TV dad Ozzie Nelson, on the other hand, never wore a suit and never went to the office.  He always wore a golf sweater, and unless he was on the PGA Seniors tour, I don’t think he had a job.  I have no idea what Ozzie Nelson did for a living, but frankly I think the Grand Jury should have investigated him or he should have been summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee.   

            And then there was June, the quintessential 1950s mom.  While Sputnik in the skies above terrorized us, the very down to earth June Cleaver reassured us that everything was going to be okay.  She wore pink dresses and beautiful white pearls.  (Eddie Haskell: “That’s a beautiful set of pearls you’re wearing, Mrs. Cleaver.”)  She stayed at home while Ward went to the office and Wally and Beav went to school with Lumpy and Eddie. 

            And at the end of the day, when Ward drove home in his Studebaker and Wally and the Beav rode back on their bicycles, June was there, waiting for them with a pot roast for dinner and fresh baked cookies for dessert. 

            It was the American family at its best.  It was America at its best…  America at work, at school, at peace…at home. 

            A few days ago I read the news that Barbara Billingsley, the actress who played June Cleaver, had died at the age of 94.  And when I read the news, I thought about my own mom who passed away in 1966.   

            The fact that I thought of my own very real mom when I read the passing of a Hollywood mom was not at all surprising.  You see, June Cleaver and my mother could have been sisters, they were so alike.  In their pink dresses and their white pearls, they assured us we had nothing to fear from Sputnik.  We didn’t need a fallout shelter…We had Mom.