Winsome Dimpledom

When Betty White reappeared on television, about a hundred years ago, she dropped into the Mary Tyler Moore Show and closed an open oven door with her bare knee. It was ferociously funny.

It made me a fan, about 7 on a one-to-ten scale of funny but oddly irrelevant culture heroes. Is Betty White really Who We Are?

Of course she is! She's the antithesis of aging, a Valkyrie warrior against the horrors of our common grave, an everlasting timeless beacon of perpetual life and joy, a sparkler in the darkness.

She's who we are all right. She's nuts, like us.

When Lawrence Welk finally popped his last cork, I thought I would never, ever, ever have to listen to that deedle-dee-DAH tink deedle-dee-DEE on Sunday nights again. Ever! But American Culture, so to speak, surprised me big time on that one. I should have seen it coming. It's not like I'd never seen a rerun before...

If Betty White ever does die, unthinkably, she too will be carefully wound 'round with Saran Wrap and Duck Tape, the answer from Modern Times to Mummy Shroud^™ and then she will... slowly... dissolve, like Imogene Coca. Like Gracie Allen. Like Edie Adams. Like Betty Boop. Like the hologram of Isaac Asim...erm...Hari Seldon spouting "I told you so" epithegms^† (sic) to Foundation and Empire, and all and sundry, irrelevant without intention. Like...

Like ancient Egyptians, we Americans hate old people. Old people are zombies. And it's open season on zombies. I take it personally, although I'm just a baby old person (I'm only 65). I get feisty when I see this stuff.

I fight back. Senex bis puer!

^†A more phlegmatic apothegm, that is!