Remember when there were just a few cable channels and we all watched the same thing. Wasn't that great? I watched the Bill Cosby "Himself" concert over and over again for months. Great concert! It was on the same VCR tape with another favorite of mine (I'd watch that right before watching "Hair" the movie - another discussion entirely). From the concert the show was created and when Theo came down the steps singing "Night and Day", I (1) immediately became a Ray Charles fan and (2) thought does this really happen? Maybe someday, this is what it would be like.... It is not.
But traditional family values don't come from a doctor marrying a lawyer or all the kids going to the best colleges. I was a pizza bagel (Remember how good they were, what happenned to them? Why don't they serve them at parties anymore?). I would sit around the Chanukah table in Forest Hills, Queens eating matzoh-ball soup one night and then a different table in Marlboro (near Newburgh) with sausage and meatballs (on top of pasta of course) the next night for Christmas Eve. What a difference between the two tables. The Chanukah table had people talking one at a time. One person would ask a question, another person would answer, and everyone else would listen. Not much talking loud and very few arguments that I can remember. The Christmas Eve table had 15 people or so around it with 13 of them talking at the same time. The volume was always loud with Sinatra usually being drowned out in the background. And yes there were a few more arguments.... ok, maybe more than a few. Neither one of them, The Cosbys.
My wife Beth, her family, also not The Cosbys.
We are also not the Bunkers. the Stivics. the Bradys (Mike and Carol or Bo and Hope). the Drummonds. the Keatons. the Petris. the Waltons. the Munsters or the Adams. We are not the Simpsons, the Griffins, the Jetsons, the Flintstones, or Carton's Mom. We are not My Two Dads (we are much funnier than that), Ms. Romano, Mrs. Garrett, Mr. Belvedere or Benson.
My father always said, "Do as I say, not as I do". I won't say that. "Take the good from us and learn from the bad". That's what he said, so thats what I did.
traditional family values from an untraditional family...... thats why Beth is the writer in the family. she knows how to say it. I'm going to try and keep up.
