Comments on: Don's "Welcome"

By: snorincats

snorincats — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:07:24 +0000

Doug and Sandy probably left Don the Caddy because he would definitely report the theft of his car to the police. I'm sure it's not the first time they pulled their "elopement" scam on anyone and knew the men they picked to rob would be too embarrassed by it to report it, even to their own families. I mean, especially in the world of 1963, how would a man tell his wife he picked up a young guy and girl, went to a cheap motel with them, drank too much, then was drugged, beaten and robbed….that would put a husband in the doghouse (if not worse) NOW!

By: RetroGirl

RetroGirl — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:36:09 +0000

What is exactly is the generation that learned cursive? Myself, and my friends in their twenties learned cursive, used it for a few years on select assignments, and by fifth or sixth grade most assignments were typed, not classwork but certainly essays.

By: Anne B

Anne B — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 00:01:35 +0000

And here I always thought penmanship was a nun thing. (That's who drummed it into us. And yes, I mean 'drummed' more or less literally.)

Wrong again! Love that!

By: freelancewoman

freelancewoman — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:46:03 +0000

Ah, I'm of the generation that learned Cursive, however my grandfather had been taught the much more elegant Copperplate, which he could still employ up until his death in the 1970s.

Scroll down to explanation of the handwriting style: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copperplate

Example: http://www.lib.unc.edu/instruct/manuscripts/image…

By: Anne B

Anne B — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:01:31 +0000

No one ended up where they thought they would.

Right you are, Sarah. This was the most modern aspect of season 3. If you think about it, no one on the show ended up where they thought they would. Nor does anyone in real life. I didn't, my mother didn't, my father didn't … and that's true for almost everyone I know, of both sexes.

The only person I know who did get the life she expected is barely hanging on to it. I mean, by her fingernails: and in defiance of everything, including the turning world. I'm not sure I'd want to live that way. In general, we don't end up where we thought we would — not just because the world changes, but because we decide to go with it. To do otherwise is, after a certain point, insane.

In some ways, living the unexpected life does have that after-a-car-wreck feeling … like, how did I get here, and what is that building doing lying on its side?

But anything would feel that way if you skipped the middle bits. Say, if you missed the fight, the midnight drive, or the smack upside the head in the motel room.

Those might have been good things to miss, in Don's case. But they offered context: to him and to us. All that stuff — where we've been, what we did, what we wish we could leave behind, but can't, for whatever reason — is the stuff that builds our stories. Gives us not just the things we tell others, but the things we finally know we are.

God bless it: that's character.

Thanks, Matt! GREAT POST.

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:48:04 +0000

And yet, let's appreciate the penmanship. That's a relic of an earlier age, when students were taught to hold a pen and write in cursive before they learned anything worth writing about.

By: Sarah M

Sarah M — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:57:09 +0000

This post makes me re-think the comment, "Don't know where you'll be in three years?"

Of course Betty said this to assert herself, and we applauded her for subtly-yet-assertively calling Don on his tendency to run, but now we realize —

No, he honestly doesn't. And neither does she. No one ended up where they thought they would.