Beaver Cleaver was a dork. Nonetheless, I envied that kid with every ounce of my soul. And for a good reason. He had everything a child could ask for. To this day, Ward and June Cleaver remain as America's all around, tag team champions of perfect parenting. His older brother, Wally, was more interested in guiding the youngest member of the family through the treacherous maze of growing up than he was in getting laid by the homecoming queen. The little creep even had his own theme song which played every time he walked home from school. His life made Marcia Brady's seem as though it belonged on the pages of Mommy Dearest. This was my concept of how everything was suppose to be. Mom, Dad, big brother, a white picket fence and a theme song. It didn't seem all that much to expect. Naturally, I was always somewhat disheartened to glance over my shoulder and take in a panoramic view of our household. Mom and Dad were there, but Wally had been mysteriously replaced by two older sisters and all that was left of my theme song was a snarling Pomeranian who hated my guts. I turned back towards the television screen and watched the credits scroll by. "Donna Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaae!" my two older sisters wailed as they jumped from the sofa and ran towards their bedroom like police sirens answering a 911 call. I threw my hands over my ears and screeched in agony. No other words in the English language could evoke the amount of distress caused by this one name. It was as though Donna Mae had been birthed from the black depths of Hell's kitchen and put upon this planet with but one purpose; to seek out and devour every fleeting moment of joy from my childhood. She was Jaws in a pink party dress. She had a dorsal fin sharp enough to surface and slice off Manhattan. I was not the first five year old boy to run into Donna Mae. There were others before me. I'm certain she is precisely whom Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote about. There was a little girl Who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead And when she was good She was very very good And when she was bad she was horrid. Horrid was actually a rather kind term to be used to describe her. Even though I had never met or seen Donna Mae, I held more fear and loathing for that girl than a cupboard full of canned asparagus. I knew from the very moment her name was first mentioned that I would never be safe from her fierce and evil clutches. Everywhere I went, she went. Whatever I did, Donna Mae did. She showed up at Sunday school and family gatherings and holidays. She was lurking about at every Christmas and birthday and vacation. She was the beast who would never die. At night, she slept in my bedroom closet and all during the day she shot spit wads at me from behind trees and parked cars. A cold shudder coursed through my veins as I stood to shut the television off. As much as I hated to admit it, all of this was possible due to one simple fact. Donna Mae,....was me. It all started rather innocently. One of my sisters had inquired as to what our names would have been had we been born a member of the opposite sex. Now, I never felt my parents were particularly inventive when it came to naming a casserole, let alone children, so there was naturally little fanfare expected to accompany any of this. My oldest sister, Sharon, would have been Carl. The second to the eldest, Charlotte, would have been named William. It all went rather well until it came my turn. I should have known better than to expect the name of a rare and delicate flower, or a famous poet or a beautiful princess but I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. After all, there's really no point in hoping for nothing. Hope is the one common bond which unites all of mankind. Coincidentally, hope is generally what we're busy doing just before reality tosses a brick through the front window. And then we hope the brick misses us. If one happens to be struck with the brick, then we hope it doesn't kill us. And if it does kill us, then we hope there's more to life than this. Hope is basically the scenic route to disappointment and death. My mother turned towards me with a prideful gleam in her eyes and rustled my hair. "If you had been born a baby girl, we were going to name you,...Donna Mae." Bingo. Right between the eyes. My two sisters and I stared at one another as though the dog had just farted. "Ewww,...DONNA MAE?!" we clamored in unison. I was appalled. This was absolutely the most repugnant thing I'd ever heard. My mind instantly began to spew forth visions of some pudgy faced urchin child with freckles, orange hair, blue horn-rim glasses and a personality cultivated from prehistoric frog dung. I had always considered a child's name to be a gift of promise given by his or her parents, of which there are perhaps ten thousand to choose from. I was their youngest child and only son. More than that, I was the last and only male born to carry on the family name. I felt I deserved something better than this. By my standards, Donna Mae was not only one of the most unflattering names available to new parents, it was not suitable for anything living. A Donna Mae would make a nice piece of furniture. It practically begs to become a small utility cabinet next to the commode designed to hold bathroom toiletries and feminine hygiene products. I'd have had a better chance of survival if they had named me Splat and dropped me from a low flying jetliner. The naming of a child is not something to be taken lightly. It can have a great deal of influence and bearing on their life. Johnny Cash addressed this very issue when he sang about A Boy Named Sue. Some people may wish to believe, as William Shakespeare wrote, "That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet". Inasmuch as these words can be appreciated coming from a beautiful teenage girl, dreamily pining from a moonlit balcony for some hot stud in spandex tights, I would venture to guess she would have voiced a different opinion had lover boy been called something slightly less poetic than Romeo Capulet. Toss her into the sack with some guy named Mortimer Snodgrass and I guarantee she would have that dagger to her stomach by the end of the first act. I simply stood there speechless. It was as though I was being choked to death by my own gag reflexes. My sisters, on the other hand, were absolutely intoxicated with the sheer entertainment value of this grand revelation. They laughed and chortled and guffawed themselves into a blinding stupor. The moment their frivolities began to even slightly wane, one of them would cry out, "Donna Maaaeee" and the two of them would be off on another tangent. My mother was oblivious as to what was taking place right before her eyes. The sacred lid to Pandora's box had just been blown wide open. Taunting demons filled the air with their raspy shrieks and shrill discords, chanting "Donna Mae" over and over again until I thought I would go stark raving mad. It was as though Gene Wilder had suddenly bellowed, "IT'S ALIIIIIVE!" and I watched in horror as Donna Mae stepped from out of the box, dipping a Pop Tart into a bowl of chocolate instant pudding. I ran screaming to my room and slammed the door behind me. Now, I'm certain a great deal of this was all in my imagination. Nonetheless, one thing was undeniably evident. My mother had unleashed some potentially lethal information and my two siblings were now equipped with enough ammunition to repeatedly castrate my mini-male ego at the slightest provocation. She might just as well have given each of them a nuclear warhead and a vile of cyanide. By 6 PM that very day, my sisters had succeeded in calling me Donna Mae a minimum of two hundred-fifty times. This, in itself, would have been more than enough for any young child to deal with. The bad news is that I was about to learn one of life's harshest realities. Just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, they do. It was an uncustomary moment. My two sisters and I were playing together in the basement and actually enjoying one another's company. We hadn't managed to safely be within arms distance of one another since the day Donna Mae crawled up from the sewer and took over my life. As we began to forage through old boxes of miscellaneous baby toys and discarded clothing, my oldest sister ‘s eyes met up with an old party dress of Charlotte's. It was a dreadful little blue number with a rhinestone studded lace yoke and short sleeves. Sharon's eyes immediately brightened. That old dress was perfect to play an incredibly funny joke on her best friend, who lived next door. But in order to do so, she first needed to button me into it. I was a big fan of practical jokes. I tormented our mother with them all the time. Nothing was considered to be too sick or twisted. I would pour ketchup down my leg and run screaming into the house just to watch her freak out. After all, I was a kid. That was my job. Sharon had no sooner fastened the last button before she flew up the stairs and phoned the neighbor girl. Her friend was given specific instructions to just come in and meet us in the basement. As we heard the back door open, Sharon dragged a chair into the center of our play area and stood me on top on the seat. The moment her friend's shoes appeared at the top of the stairs, Charlotte and Sharon covered their mouths and hid behind several large boxes. I was thrilled to see a glimmer of normalcy return after several long months of endless torment. This is how things were before any of us had heard of Donna Mae. I could hear my sisters attempting to muffle their giggles. As Sharon's friend reached the last stair step leading up from the basement, she turned towards our direction. And there I was, standing on a chair in this ridiculous outfit with a grin from ear to ear. It was a sight to behold. One call to the Fashion Police and I'd have been showered with more buckshot than Faye Dunaway in Bonnie And Clyde. For a brief and shining moment, I knew this had all the makings of a world class gag. Sharon and Charlotte could contain themselves no longer and they both jumped out from behind one of the large boxes. "Look!" Sharon squealed with glee. "It's Donna Mae!" As the three of them burst into hysterics, it became painfully obvious that my sister had omitted one very important detail. Had I been aware I was the one whom the joke was being played upon, I might not have been such a willing participant. What little dignity I had left had just been tied to an anchor and tossed off the Tallahatchie Bridge. I tore off the dress and ran out of the basement. But I knew it was already too late. They had all seen her. Donna Mae was now a living entity. In this respect, Dr. Baron Von Frankenstein and I now shared a common bond of sorts. We had each contributed to the creation of a monster. Under the careful guidance of my two sisters, I quickly became educated on the subject of sexual harassment. The carefree bliss of my youth was now a compulsory course of ridicule and humiliation. Any time I began to feel a surge of cockiness, one of my darling siblings would call forth my perpetual twin from Purgatory. Donna Mae was now more of an active member of the family than Harvey. Protecting myself from these two scrotum collecting Amazons was not an easy accomplishment. Even on his best day, Beaver Cleaver wouldn't have lasted through an hour of their taunting. The one strategy which seemed to ultimately guaranteed my survival was an innate ability to transform myself into a perfect little shit. Within the next three months, I became well trained in hand-to-hand combat and was hurling inanimate objects at these barbarians as they scampered through the house like squawking gazelles. We fought constantly. Territory lines and war zones were etched throughout the house until it was impossible to pass from one end of a room to the other without encroaching on someone's domain. Anything which could be lifted above the waist was to be considered as artillery. A bowl of soup, a bottle of shampoo, a shoe. We were the type of children who could create a weapon out of pocket lint. By April, my mother was struck with a migraine headache that lasted longer than the Crimean War. I watched as she sat helpless with an ice pack to her forehead while her three precious bundles of pride and joy used each other's heads as battering rams and door stops. At long last, my mother came to the realization that Donna Mae had to go. She had turned our happy home into The House That Bled To Death. Yet, as hard as she tried, she could not make Donna Mae leave. Year after year, her name stuck like peanut butter in my sisters' mouths. Living with Donna Mae was not easy. Aside from the obvious, there were additional difficulties involved. She had specific things she wanted to do at specific times. Considering we shared the same body made timing nearly as important as the fine art of compromise. After all, she was as much a part of me as I was a part of her. I wanted to play Sea Hunt. Donna Mae wanted to spend some quality time with my sister's Barbie and Ken dolls. Donna Mae and I alleviated this conflict by taking Barbie into the bathroom and drowning her in the toilet. I saw nothing technically wrong with playing with dolls. Barbie, Ken and Skipper were imaginary people in my imaginary world. I saw no validity to the ideology which seemed to advocate that little boys weren't allowed to do certain things for no other reason other than they are boys. Connecting sexuality to certain colors, toys, clothing or behavior seemed as appropriate as telling my father he wasn't allowed to open a paint can with a screwdriver. It was in his nature to do so. Regardless of the number of paint can openers on his workbench, he would ultimately grab the screwdriver. It's like that old adage, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him float.1 " In other words, neither can do something other than what is in its nature to do. A horse will never glide across the English Channel and a boat will never win the Kentucky Derby. The same thing can be said for people. Without such outside influences, a child will instinctively do what is in his or her nature to do. And yet, mankind seems tireless in its attempt to either restrict or instill specific standards regarding our behavior without reasonable justification. Blue is for boys, pink is for girls. Boys don't cry or play with dolls and girls don't climb trees or become president. The human spirit is guided from birth to death with numerous roadblocks and restrictions forever being place upon it. There is no logical basis for any of these myths and yet we all buy into these like a bad stock investment. Society's respect for free thought is almost nonexistent, which I suppose stands to reason as the basis for a given society is that of common beliefs and goals. I know people who have gone their entire life without ever owning a hand tool. They'll use a shoe to pound a nail into a wall and a butter knife to adjust a carburetor. Granted, even I would probably avoid stepping foot into a house which was constructed with loafers and kitchen utensils. However, I can not say whether my apprehension to do so is based on common sense or a simple inability to ask the one question which challenges everything. "Why?" As was to be expected, my parents were violently opposed to my playing with dolls. Little boys weren't suppose to do that sort of thing. I preferred to view this doll playing pastime as providing a service. I added spice to Barbie and Ken's normally uneventful lives of lying dormant in a zippered hat box. The most either of them had to look forward to with Charlotte was a brief outing to the Doll Mall. When Barbie was with me she was Honey West, delivering neck breaking karate chops and flying drop kicks to the evil, and often times perverted, Dr. Ken. She could dislocate more artificial limbs than Lee Majors. The only person who disapproved of my playing with dolls more than my parents was my sister Charlotte. I figured she was just jealous because Barbie, Ken and Skipper preferred my company over hers. For what my opinion mattered, I thought most of her dolls were a dismal failure. Their arms didn't move. Their legs didn't bend. They were just hunks of air filled plastic. The most useful benefit any of them had to offer was great hair. I took full advantage of this by cutting off the tops of their heads and making wigs for Honey West. After all, every good secret agent needs a few disguises. The day my sister discovered most of her dolls had received radical lobotomies and were left looking as though a band of brain-happy cannibals had spooned out all of their heads made it quite obvious I could have used a few good disguises myself. Donna Mae and I were forbidden to ever touch her dolls again. Actually, Barbie, Ken and Skipper had a very positive effect on me and I credit them with helping me to get in touch with my anima. This is the name psychiatrists have given to the feminine principle which exists in every man. It is the old story of Yin and Yang. However, my family wasn't well versed in the teachings of Jung and I suspect that even if they had been, they would have dismissed it as psychological rubbish. To them, I was just a very weird kid waiting to become an even stranger adult. Little boys weren't suppose to cut holes in their socks to make dresses for Barbie and that was that. It wouldn't have mattered to my father if Ken and Barbie got me in touch with Jack Kennedy. Playing with dolls made me abnormal and prompted my father to develop this peculiar way of looking at me as though I were Los Angeles. Living with Donna Mae was a trying time for all of us. My mother sat me down one day and assured me that "One day, this too shall pass". But, deep down, I knew I would never be free of Donna Mae. As I suspected, Donna Mae never did completely fade off into the archives of forgotten memorabilia. Though as the years marched onward and my sisters and I grew older, we did see and hear less of her. Yet, her absence was only apparent on the outside. Inside, she was alive and well, lingering somewhere near the edge of my subconscious and spouting off subtle insights to influence my interpretation of the world around me. This was never more evident than the day our family was visiting my grandparents. It was vacation time for my uncle, his wife and their three daughters and they had traveled to the family homestead from Wyoming, as they did almost every summer. Granny had decided it was an appropriate time to bequeath her lifetime collections of fine china sets. Over the years, she had amassed a complete 8 piece place setting for every grandchild. Well, every granddaughter anyway. I was left high and dry and sitting on the sidelines without the slightest glimmer of recognition as her five lovely granddaughters drew paper slips out of a glass bowl. Each paper strip had a different china set written on it. I sat sulking on the stairs leading to the second story of my grandparent's house, listening to all five of them giggle and squeal with delight and envy for the one who ended up with the prized antique baby blue set. I didn't understand the big hurrah being made about the blue tableware but I did understand one thing. Donna Mae was royally pissed off. She wanted fancy china too. "How come I don't get any dishes?" I finally grumbled. The room fell silent. Everyone turned to look at me as though Donna Mae had taken aim and shot each one of them between the eyes with one of her infamous spitballs. Sharon let out a loud sigh. "You're a boy," Gram finally sputtered. Donna Mae gave me a sharp poke in the ribs. "So. Boys eat too," I pouted. In simplified terms, Gram was attempting to explain something which was without explanation.. "Boys don't need dishes like girls do. These are for the day each girl gets married." That was the dumbest thing I had ever heard. From my point of view, this was a mini Christmas and Granny had scratched my name off of Santa's list. Still, the implication was clear enough. A girl needed dishes to hook a good man. Husband hunting without fine china was similar to fishing without bait. Obviously, something more was going on here. My father was nervously biting his lower lip as though it were a stick of Wrigley's. I immediately glanced over at my mother and recalled the set of flowered plates which made a rare appearance every Thanksgiving. Donna Mae sat back in a state of petrified horror as the realization hit her. Those eight piece place settings were paramount to life, liberty and the pursuit of living happily ever after. And Donna Mae and I had both been placed on a rusty barge to Spinster Island. I tossed an evil glare at the five girls who stood clutching their bounty with white knuckles. They had a stronger death grip on those plates than boa constrictors. I now understood why everyone wanted that baby blue set. My cousin now owned a dowry capable of luring Richard Burton out of the arms of Liz Taylor. As the girls began to pack their dishes into boxes, I heard Donna Mae frantically screech from inside my head, "Say something, you moron!" I wrinkled my nose. "I might get married to a girl one day." Donna Mae rolled her eyes and let out a large cough. "Yes, I suppose you will," Gram mused. "And what if nobody gave her dishes? We won't have any." Granny's upper dentures slipped forward and slammed down upon her tongue like a piano lid. "And even if I don't get married," I continued. "what am I suppose to do? Eat off paper plates all my life?" Gram pushed her teeth back into place and smiled. I was just a little kid but she knew I had a point. I needed dinnerware just as much as the next person. For all she knew, I needed it more. And I think she suspected as much. It took Granny several months to find a set specifically for me and when she finally presented me with it, I was a bit shocked. It wasn't really fine china. It was this clunky masculine sort of glazed ceramic stuff. Each plate weighed in at almost five pounds. I would need a hydraulic lift and reinforced joint supports to set a table for six. Not only that, I recognized the collection. They were from a display case at a service station. My father had aided in the acquisition of the set every time he filled the gas tank of his car. You got a free cup with every fill or you could toss in a buck and get a couple bowls or a plate. This is from back in the days when gas companies used to vie for business by offering certain incentives and long before they came to realize they had America by the pistons and could squeeze blood out of the Shroud of Turin. Donna Mae stared at the stoneware. This was not the promise of wedded bliss and romantic nights on the Riviera. This was the promise of watching Friday night football with an unemployed auto mechanic. Nonetheless, I gladly accepted this as a consolation prize of sorts. It didn't really matter what the fine china looked like or even that it qualified as fine china. What mattered was that I wasn't penalized because I was a boy. Secondly, my dinnerware had something the others didn't. It had a matching casserole dish. I figured that had to be worth something. In a manner of speaking, every child is given a set of dishes. Some are simple sets. They can be ornate and delicate like my cousin's baby blue set, or patterned or plain or hand painted. Some are made of glass, beautiful and yet disturbingly fragile while others might be somewhat less esthetically appealing, yet with the durability of granite. Any way you look at it, each comes with something uniquely special. And I suppose Beaver Cleaver had a set as well. His just happened to include the whole kit and caboodle. The cups, the bowls, the plates, the saucers. He even had the gravy boat and matching salt and pepper shakers. It was great to look at but certainly not as strong as it should have been because the show eventually got canceled. When Beaver didn't return to the black and white screen that fall, I realized his dishes were just on loan. The television people took them back and I don't think he got to keep a single cup. I, on the other hand, still had mine. It wasn't perfect and it wasn't exactly what I had hoped for, but it was solid and no one could take it away. I was still a bit disappointed that I never got a theme song, yet I had most of the set. My father and my mother, two sisters and a dog which unfortunately didn't like me very much. I reached up and shut the television set off. The screen flashed and I watched the picture shrink into the world's smallest dot of light just as Sharon and Charlotte ran from their room and out the front door. "Donna Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaae!" I heard them wail as the dog yapped at their heels and followed them into the front yard. Oh yeah. And I got the casserole dish as an added bonus. Donna Mae nudged me with an elbow. "Why the hell would you wanna be Beaver Cleaver anyway? He's a dork."