Remembering Carroll O’Connor
The first time I saw Carroll O'Connor, I didn't get it. I remember hearing him sing "Those Were The Days", the now famous opening theme to "All In The Family" (1971-1979), with his co-star Jean Stapleton. If I remember correctly, I believe my comment at the time was something to the effect of "Mommy, why are they signing badly?" But I was a young kid back then. In fact, if it weren't for syndicated reruns, I might have missed the show entirely, since I don't actually remember watching the show during prime time. I knew very little about social satire and I sure as hell didn't know anything about conservative versus liberal politics. So I didn't get it.
I didn't get many of the jokes at first. I remember Archie and Mike would fight and yell all the time but I didn't really understand why. However, I soon figured out that Edith was suppose to be the "dingbat" wife. Now we were getting somewhere. This in itself was enough to give the show some hope in my young impressionable mind. But every once in a while, she would surprise us by doing something intelligent and my mother would comment, "You see, she is not as dumb as she looks." There was obviously more to her than met the eye. There was more to the whole show actually, but I still didn't get it.
Yet, one episode in particular seems to stick out in my memory. An episode where an old friend of Mike visits from Canada and although Archie didn't know it, this was someone who dodged the draft. There is a very dramatic scene when everybody is sitting down at the dinner table and Archie suddenly finds out why this character decided to move to Canada. Archie gets upset, starts yelling and wants to throw the guy out. At the time at which the episode was produced, draft dodgers were not yet welcomed back into the States.
That episode made me stop and think. I was reminded of my own family and my uncle who escaped to Canada when he received his draft notice. My father is the one who brought him to Canada, the same country where I was born and raised. I would later learn that my grandmother was herself a conservative and that my uncle's decision was not an easy one. I think "All In The Family" helped me shed my innocent view of the world and also made me realize that conflict and tension are not just in the news. Sometimes they are in your own backyard.
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