h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Those of us who were young kids back then are the only generation that grew up thinking The Twilight Zone was a documentary series."


I was seriously traumatized by those National Enquirer articles about what it was like to die of nuclear fallout. Then I got to reading "On the beach" and "Alas Babylon," which scared the out of me.

Stephen King skewered the fifties in "Hearts in Atlantis," with the main character's mother working as a secretary and getting chased around the office by her boss who wanted sex.

"Far from heaven" skewered the fifties for its attitude toward gay people. The little town I lived in had just two African-American families. I kept reading about discrimination, but we only had those few back people, and they seemed perfectly nice, so I really wasn't sure what to do, except treat them as regular people, which I tried to do.

In the fifties: most men (and a lot of women) smoked, the divorce rate was high, a lot of people feared nuclear annihilation, there were many people who didn't want to conform but society seemed determined ot make them. The beatnik on "The many lives of Dobie Gillis" was the closest thing to a dissenter on network TV, but he was too likeable to be mad at. "Work" was a four-letter word for him. That was as far as he diverged from the bland, vanilla norm.

And then he got stranded on a desert island with Alan Hale. Poor Maynard - he was always one of my favourites.

I hear you. What you thought of a 50s childhood had a lot to do with where you were, and how aware you were of subtext. Spending it in the South was...different...there was a lot of subtext...

Not to mention seeing things from a child's perspective, as compared to an adult's perspective. There's a world of difference between the perspectives in "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Go set a watchman." I kind of like having both to chew on, but there have been many who
hated the "second" one, even though it was written first. Atticus Finch must have been extremely complex, to say the least.

I found 'Go Set a Watchman' a lot more honest. There's a reason that book is on my desk shelf, and not the other one.

It reminds me of a friend of ours in college. Fatima was from Hong Kong, and nobody knew much about the place. One day, we read an essay she wrote for her freshman English class. It was a delicate little story about her grandfather, who kept a little bird in a cage and had wise Chinese sayings to share. She got an A.

One of Elektra's friends said, 'Oh, Fatima, that's so beautiful! Your grandfather must be such a wonderful, old-fashioned man!'

'He's a busy professional, and he doesn't keep birds,' she laughed. 'I made it up. Those English teachers eat up all that 'Oriental wisdom' stuff.'

I nearly died laughing - and remembered this as I taught English as Second Language. One, make sure they know the earth is round, and two, always vet the folklore...

You are very perceptive, Dmitri. And there's never a dull moment with you.