Lumpy

Some of you might remember Leave It To Beaver, an early tv classic when black and white were the only two choices. There were about 4 stations to watch, and you physically had to get up from the couch to change the channel or even to turn the tv on. My Mother always would caution us not to sit so close to the tv, presumably due to the radiation emanating from the large wooden box that housed tubes and screen.

Television was magic, even in the early sixties. I remember in 1963 watching the news and they were showing the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald. Live and on screen, we watched as a man in an overcoat, wearing a hat, pulled a small handgun, and shot and killed Oswald. He was Jack Ruby, a local gangster. Was he an angry man seeking vengeance for America’s lost dream or was he just a hired gun?

Leave It To Beaver didn’t have any gunman, at least not that I recall, although they did have Gus the Fireman. They were a nuclear family, called the Cleavers, with husband Ward Cleaver, his wife June Cleaver, and two sons, Wally and Theodore, also known as The Beaver.

There were also their friends, including Wally’s best friend the very unctuous and obsequious Eddie Haskell, and a character known as Lumpy Rutherford.

“Lumpy is a papa's boy. He is well known for referring to his father as "Daddy." Fred would tell Clarence he was too old or too big (usually referring to his "lumpiness") to call him "Daddy." A running gag on the show was to have Fred, who always referred to his son as Clarence, call him "Lumpy" when angry. Fred would also call Lumpy a "big boob" or a "big oaf." Lumpy's mother Gwendolyn ("Geraldine", in some early episodes) and his younger sister, Violet (who is about Beaver's age), round out the family. Violet gives Beaver a black eye in an early episode. Lumpy also has an unseen brother.

Lumpy is not the brightest fellow in Mayfield. He is a very hefty young lad and is often teased because of it. Lumpy often persuades others to do things that he is really too afraid to do himself. He sometimes picks on Beaver. Beaver responds by yelling at Lumpy from a distance "Lumpy Dumpy looks like an ape." Several references are made that Lumpy plays the clarinet, and later plays the tuba.”

When I was a kid growing up in Aberdeen Washington, there was a kid called Guy Morton. He was a little on the lumpy side as well, and bullies would grab his little boy boobies and twist them, giving him what became known as a Purple Morton.

It is interesting to look back at all the casual cruelties that we suffered or that we dealt out. I remember walking home after a long walk to what we called “ the little store”, a small neighborhood corner grocery run by a Chinese family. I was crossing a bridge when this older teen appeared. There was a nervous menace about him. Not wanting to appear scared, I kept walking toward him. It was like a slo-motion movie. I knew what was coming, but it was like I had to go through it, not around it. It seemed to be my fate and there was no turning back.

He demanded my money, which couldn’t have been more than coins. I gave it to him. He almost seemed sorry that he was doing this, but like me, he was on a path here, and there was no turning back. I either gave him the money or he would beat me up.

I think he also took my candy which was in a paper bag. Then he left. I was unharmed, except for the shock of having been threatened and robbed. It probably lasted less than 5 minutes, but 57 years later, I still remember it.

Lumpy Rutherford was the bully in Leave It To Beaver. This fact I found out from reading Wikipedia. I had forgotten he was the bully. I had remembered him as Beaver’s friend, when actually he was Wally’s friend. Lumpy was the bully but he was also the bullied. It often works that way.

I remember a story that my friend Chris told me about his younger brother, Pete. Pete was a large kid, similar to Guy Morton I guess. We called him Big Pete. Pete was being bullied at school. One day, Pete and Chris’s Dad, Lyndon decided enough was enough. He went to the house of the bully, and knocked on the door.

The father of the bully came to the door. Lynden said he had to do something to stop his kid from bullying Pete.

The bully’s Father said,”I’m so sorry. I try my best with him. I beat him regularly but nothing seems to work.”

There is the root of the bully. Often they are bullied themselves first. They feel weak, unloved, and they fight back by picking on someone younger and smaller than them.

Today is the day I go in for my biopsy. I have this lump growing on my neck near my jaw. It is hard, and painless. But it does not seem to be going away. It is getting larger. So today we get the biopsy to hopefully better understand what this lump is. The appointment has taken two months to get.

It is probably nothing, I keep saying to myself. As someone who has had a heart attack and had his chest split open for bypass surgery, a lump is not so scary. Still, disconcerting. Still, a bother. Let’s figure out what it is, and how to get rid of it.

I have no clue why my mind went from lump to Lumpy, then lead to bully, and back to lump. That’s just the way things work in this lump of a brain I have. Lump is kind of a funny word. Sort of reminds me of the word dumpling.

“Doctor, I think I have a dumpling growing on my neck.”

Which reminds me of “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain When She Comes”. And we’ll all go out to meet her when she comes. And we’ll all have chicken and dumplings when she comes, except I would say chickle and dumplings.

And who doesn’t love dumplings?