...because Arthur Fonzerelli, "the Fonz" from the "Happy Days" sitcom of the 1970s, will get a statue there.
Heyyyyy! This is a nice thing. If you're like me, and spent much of the '70s in middle school and high school, you couldn't help but be touched by "Happy Days." It was a dominant sitcom for ABC, and was not only a product of, but (I suspect) helped inspire that yearning for the 1950s we saw in the "me" decade. Maybe it was because the crewcuts, thin ties, and long skirts of the '50s seemed so exotic after the wild '60s. Maybe it was just that we longed for the apparent certainties and placidity of the Eisenhower years, after the disturbances of the Vietnam era. Or maybe the show just got lucky in getting Henry Winkler and Ron Howard, and making/using cute sayings like "sit on it."
But it captured something, that's for sure. And even in the small town I lived in, it seemed like everybody back then knew what was going on with the show week to week. I can still remember everybody oohing and aaahing over the episode where the Fonz, to prove a point, was doing a dangerous jump with his motorcycle--only to have the episode end when he was in mid-jump. We'd have to wait until next week to see what happened!
And so we did. And we still remember. So here's to the Fonz and Pottsie and Ralph Mouth and Joanie and the gang; and good for Milwaukee for helping to make sure that others down the line will remember them, too.
