Goodnight, and May God Bless

While waiting in a checkout line at Wal-Mart one day, I overheard two young mothers discussing their difficulties in getting their toddlers to go to bed at night. Leaning against my shopping cart, waiting my turn to make my donation to the Walton family fortune, I thought to myself that I don't ever remember Mom having any problem putting my sister or me to bed. She just put us in bed, and we knew we were to stay there until time for breakfast the next morning. No whining allowed.

Bedtime for us as young children came early, by current standards. We had to be bathed, in our jammies, and in bed by 8:00 p.m. No arguments.

The only exception to this hard and fast rule was Tuesday evenings. That one night each week we were allowed to stay up past our bedtime to watch Red Skelton. How we looked forward to Red's opening monologue; my favorite monologue characters were the two seagulls, Gertrude and Heathcliff. In the main sketches, Clem Kadiddlehopper was always fun, but Sheriff Deadeye was hilarious.

The best thing about Red's show was that he always seemed to be having a wonderful time. It was as though he was doing the show for fun, and just invited you along for the ride.

It was always a little sad to see him come out at the end of the show to say "Goodnight, and may God bless". We knew that as soon as David Rose's "Holiday for Strings" ended, it was bedtime. And it would be another whole week before we saw Red again.

Looking back, the period during which I remember watching the shows was in the early 1960's, a truly turbulent time in our country. On the evening news, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley would tell us about hippies, civil rights demonstrations, and the space race.

Red Skelton's television show was funny, but in a gentle way. There were no jokes of questionable taste. Children could be allowed to watch it with no fear of exposing them to anything inappropriate. How did such a tame show survive in such an edgy time?

I've no idea. I'm just grateful that I have memories of Red's infectious giggle as he tried to get through a San Fernando Red skit without breaking up.