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I recall seeing this sit com on Friday evenings, at my Grandmother's apartment, when the extended family came together for the Jewish Sabbath Dinner meal.

I don' t want to sound ill-tempered or to "rain on your parade," but I never got that psyched up about the Dobie Giliis program. I think I saw it from roughly age 5 to age 8.

It's no wonder that you did not realize that smoking reefer was part of the beatnik scene

Actually this --- Maynard Krebbs and similar dramatic inventions -- is all explained in Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man, which hit bookstores in 1964.

Marcuse said that in America, the capitalistic ruling class "defangs" or neuters radical phenomena by offering cute, domesticated versions of those radical phenomena.

Marcuse called this process "cooptation," I.e., instead of a real, authentic beatnick it sells us Maynard Krebbs and that way young boys will be encouraged to be like maynard krebbs and not a genuine trouble maker who can change the world.

There are many examples of cooptation: David Cassidy was a prime one. When I was an ardent John Lennonist, I considered Paul Mc Cartney the personification of cooptation.

BTW: It sounds like you also came from NYC as you discussed what subway stations you had journeyed to. I grew up in Brooklyn, one block from the 77th Street stop on the R train. When I was 13, I traveled to Times Square for my first anti Vietnam War demo.

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