B is for Beaver

B is for Beaver, or Leave it to Beaver, that is.

 This month marks the 15th anniversary of my blog, so I will be sharing previous posts from over 2000 that I have written. 

For those of you who might be blog-hopping here during the A-Z challenge, I'll catch you up on my blog aliases. Below is the post that explains the main characters in my blog. This originally appeared in May 2013, but I post it every few years for new readers here. So here it goes again. 

Also, there will be a little bonus section at the end. 

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Leave it to Beaver or the Family We're Based On

You may have noticed that my family has the names of Ward, June, Wally, and Theodore. Some of you may have thought that those were our real names. However, some of you may have realized that those are our aliases based on names from the TV show  Leave It to Beaver. Leave It to Beaver was a situation comedy that aired from 1957 to 1963 and is still in reruns today. 

The show revolved around the Cleaver Family — Ward and June, the parents, and Wally and Theodore (also known as the Beaver), their sons. The premise of the show was that Beaver and Wally got themselves into scrapes that frustrated their parents, but from which everyone ultimately learned a lesson.

When I chose these aliases for my blog world, I didn't think much about the significance, except that there were the right number and gender in the Cleaver family, and they were from a show that made me smile when I thought about it.

In this post, I had planned to talk about the details of the Cleaver family and compare and contrast them with my family. However, that's too much work, so I'm just going to tell you a couple of things I found interesting about the making of the show that resonates with me.

--The makers of the show wanted to get gentle laughs. If anything got a really big laugh, they changed the script to make it more of a chuckle or smile. While I love a good belly laugh, the gentle laugh fits with my basic philosophy of life: Everything in moderation.

--June often wore pearls and heels when she was cooking and cleaning around the house. This is often made fun of because it was so unrealistic. However, once I heard an interview with the actress who played June, and she explained why those wardrobe choices were made.

 Apparently, the hollow at the bottom of her neck looked strange on film, so they had her wear pearls to fix the problem. Also, as the actors who played Wally and Beaver grew, they wanted her to be taller than them to still look authoritative as a parent. Thus, they had her put on heels. While you'll never find me cooking and cleaning in either pearls or heels, this reminds me that snap judgments are often wrong. Many times, you just don't know all of the facts.

--Leave it to Beaver was the first TV show in which the kids were the main focus and not the parents. I don't have anything meaningful to say about this except that I find it interesting.

Another time, I may go into individual episodes, but for now, you know where our blog names came from.

But Wait There's More!

 If you read here very often and you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that several other major and minor Leave It to Beaver characters show up in my posts.

B is for Bonus Pictures

We got back yesterday from an almost two-week trip to Texas. When we left, spring was starting to show itself with crocuses blooming and a daffodil here and there. Now the fruit trees are blooming, and some daffodils have bloomed, and some are starting to wither. I was very excited by what I saw, so I'm going to share a few pictures.

Daffodil

Phlox

Neighbor's ornamental cherry

Quince

Daffodil

Hellebore

Vinca

Sour cherry

Forsythia

Crab apple

Pear

Ornamental Plum

Until next time...