I was born about three months before the start of the 1970s,
which was a very turbulent decade. I mean, all decades are somewhat turbulent,
but the 70s seemed more turbulent than most. Certainly, it was more turbulent
than the 50s or 90s, and maybe slightly more turbulent than the 80s, though
probably not as turbulent as the 60s. I won’t go back further than that,
because then you run into the World Wars, so those decades don’t really count,
because those would definitely be more turbulent, so then the argument gets
unduly skewed. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten into this whole decade debate in
the first place, because that’s not really the point of what I’m writing here
and now people are going to feel compelled to take sides for their favorite
turbulent decade. Let’s move it along.
The point is, as a kid in the 70s, it was difficult to process the world around
me and understand right from wrong. Some people I saw on TV were good (Walter
Cronkite) and some were bad (Son of Sam.) And some started off smart and
sensitive and ended up as an out of control monster (Dr. David Banner.) I
quickly noticed the complexities of human nature, so it was difficult to know
which adults to trust. Instead, I learned to trust puppets.
I grew up when Sesame Street had just
started on PBS, and I soon saw that the puppet characters were generally wiser,
kinder and more trustworthy than humans. They taught me about letters and
numbers, about how to eat right, and about being a good friend. And it wasn’t
just Sesame Street where the puppets
were the wise ones. Shows like Mister
Rogers’ Neighborhood, Captain
Kangaroo, and for us East-Coasters, The
Magic Garden, each had kind, lovable puppets teaching us valuable life
lessons.
So why am I bringing this up now, four decades later? Because I believe the
world needs the wisdom of puppets now, more than ever. Remember earlier when I
was talking about the relative turbulence of decades? You might have noticed
that I didn’t even bring up any of the decades in the 21st century.
That’s because our current decade, and the two that preceded it, have been a
complete and utter fiasco. We need some
puppet-sense immediately!
Here’s a thought for next week’s presidential debate. Let each candidate speak
through a puppet. Have each of them drop below the podium, shove their hand up
a puppet’s bottom hole, stick it up top where everyone can see the cute little
bugger, and let their puppet do the talking. I believe that people are
automatically kinder and wiser when they speak through a puppet. This may be
the only way to have a truly civil discourse. (Note: I’m not suggesting the
puppets look like the candidates—that could be terrifying. I’m looking for
happy, colorful, non-human looking puppets that instantly engender goodwill.)
I’m willing to bet that if the candidates added “must speak through puppets” to
the debate rules, it would increase viewership exponentially. Honestly, I
wasn’t really planning on watching the debate next week, but if I knew I’d be
seeing felt instead of flesh, you can bet I’d tune in. I’m sure we would all
learn a lot more in that format than in a standard debate setting, and the
entire audience—no matter your political affiliation—would enjoy the obligatory
group sing-a-long at the end.
Ah, who am I kidding? CNN would never go for this. Now, if the debate were on
PBS…
