Wonder Years

I was watching an old television series from the late eighties and early nineties called “The Wonder Years”.  This is a series that took place from the late sixties to the early seventies.  This is a show about a character named Kevin Arnold and how he came of age in the suburbs at a time of history that was full of changes politically, economically, socially, religiously as well as educationally.

This series even though I was a child that was only born in sixties and did not start school till 1970 still can relate to watching this series.  In the first episode Kevin is starting junior high school and his school was being renamed as a lot of schools do when someone that is politically famous dies at that time.  Kevin also had to learn that his behavior has consequences.  He happens to throw an apple across the cafeteria because he was mad at his brother for making fun of him around his friend who just happens to be a girl.  Parental judgement is not meted out for when they get home from school they find out the a neighborhood friend was killed in Vietnam.  This made the parents realize that what Kevin did really did not matter in the scheme of things that are really important.

Another episode dealt with Kevin wanting to call a girl on the phone for the first time and realizing that he really is not the center of attention in the world for he is sick home from school for he thinks everyone will be making fun of him the next day for something that happened in the cafeteria the other day.  No one even remembered what happened and at the end Kevin realizes this by watching the Apollo 8 astronauts circle the earth and he was able to call the girl on the phone and actually have a nice talk and getting to know her.

The Wonder Years is a show that any generation could watch and be able to put themselves into the action of any of the characters.  I was a student who started at a new school when I started seventh grade and had to learn that we were no longer elementary children and all the social and academic lessons that were going to happen to me and all the soon to be teenagers and the adults of today had to learn in order to be the kind of adults we have become and survived our own wonder years.

This article was not a review of sorts, but it was just a way for me to talk about a show that I liked for it did bring back a lot of memories of how life changes but stays the same.  All generations before and after Kevin have gone thorough and will continue to go through all of the various issues that these characters are going through in their learning about how to live in confusing times.