One More Shot at Mad Men

I waited to read the Globe's Matthew Gilbert's review of "Mad Men" link here or below because his opinions are valued but I wanted to come to my own conclusion about the "Mad Men" conclusion.

The first words out of my mouth explained my first reaction to the ending of "Mad Men" best: WAAAAAHHHT? Then I sat and then slept on it rolling it over in my mind like a clothes dryer trying to dry a big load of clothes. I am still mulling it over.

I do not know whether I am easily influenced by my betters but I think Gilbert's review gave me my final answer. A thumbs up to Weiner who gave us not only an interesting ending but a snap shot of 1950's, early 1960's, late 1960's and early 1970's America the analysis of which has always touched my soul because I experienced it.

Like 1929 and FDR influenced my parents on most everything the eras that encompass "Mad Men" influenced me on most everything. In the 1950's I drank a toast to the president Ike Eisenhower with milk as shown on Boston's "Big Brother Bob Emry Show," I mourned the JFK tragedy as all those I knew did, then I went to Boston University, the Berkeley of the east, in the late 60's where Howard Zinn and others captured my political heart.

"Mad Men" meant so much to me because I lived it. There is truth to Weiner's ending as I experience life now. The revolution of the late 1960's had its raging waters calmed. It never did turn out as I thought it would. Gene McCarthy would never be president, Robert Kennedy was assassinated as was Martin Luther King. But life went on despite the tragedies of those eras. In 2008 we elected a black president something I never thought possible. It was possible though and we did it. Don Draper thought down and out when he sat on the ground after his life's most explosive trials saying he could not move. He did move, though, back into the world as he knew it to create the beautiful Coke commercial I happened to love.

"Mad Men" is about birth, it is about death and it is about rebirth to give life one more shot (no pun intended!)

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/television/2015/05/17/don-draper-final-bow-teaching-moment/2790c1AO1gkqAzj3heAoVP/story.html