These Happy Days Were Yours and Mine...

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I remember an old "Happy Days" episode (Season 2, Episode 18 to be exact).  Ritchie, Ralph and Potsie needed some spending money, so they decided to look for odd jobs around the neighbourhood.  They happened upon a very attractive divorcée who needed her fence repaired.  When 2 of the boys got tired of this manual labour, Ritchie was left on his own to finish the work.  To thank him, Mrs. Dorothy Kimber invited him to dinner.  This simple gesture made all three boys' imaginations go into overdrive!

"Ralph: With a divorcée, all you gotta do is establish a relationship.

Richie: With a glass of water?

Ralph: It's a start, Rich, it's a start. It gets you inside the house. Then, you charm your way into her private quarters. From there, you're just one subtle move away from paradise.

Richie: You go from a glass of water to paradise?"

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The boys watched while Dorothy and Richie shared a kiss on her front porch swing.  Richie wished that he was 10 years older.  He never revealed the details of that evening.

It's funny to think now that being a divorced woman was such a scandalous thing back in those days.  They were labelled as "gagging for it" as the Brits would say.  What about the divorced men?  Why weren't they fodder for the gossip mill?  It really was a mad, mad men's world working its double standard.

I fear that we are getting too used to hearing about divorce.  Just found out that another person I know has decided to end their marriage.  It's a sad reality and there's certainly no romance in the notion of a couple breaking up.  We're more jaded than ever before and there are those out there who no longer believe in true love or any of the other Utopian ideas from the past. 

These happy days WERE yours and mine... 


Carol