Do you remember who first taught you about our great American tradition of freedom, equality for all, and the liberties we enjoy in this country? Probably not, but, undoubtedly, you owe some gratitude to a schoolteacher.
Unfortunately, teaching is an under-appreciated profession. Most teachers must moonlight or have second careers during their summer breaks to make ends meet. We think that throwing or kicking a ball around is worth a lot more money than educating our children and training the next generation, who will sometime soon be running the country.
The Story
We see Connie at a medical appointment, where the doctor (Robert Burton) is prescribing vitamins and calcium pills because they can’t afford meat on Joe’s meager salary. When the doctor asks if she doesn’t like meat, she replies, “Next to me, a tiger is a vegetarian! I love meat, but we can’t afford it.”
When she and her friend Phyllis Archibald (Marilyn Erskine), another college professor’s wife, go into the butcher shop, the butcher (Walter Slezak) asks her if she wants some tripe. However, when she sees some delicious-looking, thick lamb chops, she asks for four of them. Phyllis asks her how she will afford it, to which she replies, “I’ll use my cigarette money.” Her friend decides to do the same thing.
The Scene
One day, Opie arrives unexpectedly at their front door, and Connie is delighted to meet him. He has come on the mission to bring Joe back to the ranch to help him run it. Joe is very suspicious, but Connie and Opie become fast friends.After being fed fish for dinner and watching Connie take her pills at Joe’s urging, Opie is very concerned to learn that she’s expecting his first grandchild. He tells her that Joe’s mother ate three steaks a day when she was expecting him, and he was a strapping 11-pound, 4-oz. baby! Connie says that the pills are good, too, but Opie insists she needs meat, saying, “You can’t have no good baby eating pills and fish. ... There is nothing as good as meat! Nothing in all this world!”
That night, Opie has a terrible nightmare about Connie’s giving birth to a fish and a bottle of pills. He decides to take matters into his own hands, even though he knows Joe would resent his interference. He goes down to the local butcher and tells him to slash his meat prices so Connie can stock up by buying a freezer. However, when the other wives find out about it, a price war ensues among the butchers in town.
Its Significance
This scene in question comes 32 minutes into this 71-minute movie. Opie tells Joe he is begging him to come back to the ranch, but Joe declares he is a teacher, and he intends to stay a teacher. He gives an impassioned speech about the importance of teaching, saying, “Listen, Pa, every 30 years, there is another generation of Americans. A whole new nation. A hundred-and-sixty million new people. What’s to guarantee that they’re Americans? Why don’t they just turn into a hundred-and-sixty-million people with powerful airplanes and big bombs and an itch to rule the world? I’ll tell you why—because they’ve got a heritage. They’ve got a Constitution and a Bill of Rights and a Declaration of Independence and a tradition of fair play! And how do they know it? Because the teachers of America tell it to them; not only tell it to them but sell it to them!”Changing the Rancher
Opie is so affected when he sees men and women excited about being able to buy steaks, roasts, and lamb chops, that he anonymously donates a $1000 bonus to all of the teachers for the next year. When Joe finds out that his father gave the money, he accuses him of trying to buy his affection. It’s only when he realizes that Opie made the donation when he thought Joe had decided to come back to the ranch that he realizes his father has really changed.The film ends with Joe and Connie visiting the ranch during summer vacation. When they show Opie his grandson, they tell him that his name is Opie T. Bedloe. He asks for what the T stands, to which Connie replies “T-Bone,” because she ate so many steaks while she was expecting him. The proud grandpa says that he came along just in time, or else his middle name may have been Sardine!
Although there are still some good teachers in this country, I think it might be better for our children at this point in history if many of our teachers became ranchers instead of pushing their immoral, un-American agendas. They couldn’t do too much harm to the cattle!
