Health & Fitness
"Mad Men" is One of Life's Timestamps
For a lucky US Army Reservist in Afghanistan, deploying overseas this year meant not having to miss "Mad Men."
Deploying overseas in war or peace usually means missing something important and memorable stateside, such as a child’s birthday, Christmas season and the Super Bowl.
I got lucky this mobilization because I expect to return home to San Bernardino County in October, just in time for the football and Christmas seasons (I may, unfortunately, miss my son’s birthday by a week).
My luck this deployment even extends to “Mad Men,” the only show my wife and I have consistently made appointment television since “The Sopranos” concluded in 2007.
Find out what's happening in Banning-Beaumontwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
My wife Sharilyn introduced me to “Mad Men” during its third season, when I could not take my eyes off people who drove without seatbelts, smoked like chimneys and ignored garbage cans – all while having drinks in their hands. The furniture in the show reminds me of the stuff that concluded its useful life in my run-down college apartment.
The show, in riveting detail, uses Madison Avenue advertising executives in New York City to tell the story of the early 1960s. You can just feel that a life-impacting moment from that era, such as the JFK assassination or the Vietnam War, might interrupt the next episode.
Find out what's happening in Banning-Beaumontwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
(The shock of the show is it so vividly depicts what I remember of my parents – particularly the repressed memory of my mother sporting a Marge Simpson “beehive” hairdo. I can’t help but wonder, when I watch the show, how we 40-somethings survived our chaotic childhoods.)
It took me a season before I was absorbed by the plotlines (I’m still amazed how star and stud Don Draper was able to pull off a double life after deserting the Army during the Korean War). “Mad Men,” even when it’s not airing, is a frequent talking point when my wife and I Skype.
Lucky for me, “Mad Men” concluded its seventh season in October 2010, three months before I was mobilized for Iraq and Afghanistan in January. It returns March 2012, six months after I’m demobilized and return home to Redlands.
The show was delayed nearly a year for contract reasons. Had “Man Men” aired as normal, I could have just caught up with my wife by waiting for the reruns.
But that would ruin the fun of appointment television – a family or husband-wife get together that puts a timestamp on life.
