the rix mix

I don't remember Bob Denver so much as Gilligan than as Maynard G. Krebs, the young beatnik caricature on Dobie Gillis, an intelligent sitcom for that era (1959-1963). Denver's character was gentle, clownish but not stupid, a devoted friend. It had to take a certain amount of imagination & guts for Maynard to maintain as a teenage hipster / slacker in Central City, against the high school conformist greasers & jocks. At age ten, I already wanted to hang out with The Beats. But before I could do it, beatniks (a word created by Time magazine) had given way to hippies, & I never thought hippies were all that cool.

A few years ago as a goof I submitted a few rhymed verses about Krebs to the Bad Poetry Contest at Maynard's Coffeehouse on the Bob Denver website, & won an autographed copy of Gilligan, Maynard & Me!