To Goof Or Not To Goof: To Goof or Not To Goof: Personal Pointers on Manners, Morals and Dating Know-How From My Own Hard-Won Experience
by Dick Clark.
Bernard Geis Associates. 1963. pgs. 214.
If young people in the ‘60s trusted anyone over 30, it was Dick Clark. Host of American Bandstand and an otherwise “cool adult” Clark was viewed as a mentor/father/friend to teens going through the pain of growing up.
It was only nature to publish a book of advice. Clark’s “To Goof or Not To Goof: Personal Pointers on Manners, Morals and Dating Know-How From My Own Hard-Won Experience” outlines how to act in any situation. Parties, dating, telephone etiquette and driving manners, Clark tells teens not to be a goon.
For dating: “In short, ridiculous as it may seem to you, treat your girl as if she were a gorgeous but not very strong creature who should be protected from the ugly realities of life, such as how dinners are bought or where theater tickets are from. Even if she is captain of the girls basketball team or the school whiz in math!”
The book is filled with roles and rules that teens had to know in order to survive in society.
Despite some of the old-fashioned and perhaps even sexist advice, Clark is helpful when it comes to parents. He tells teens to compromise, prove their trustworthiness and think of others in the family – especially when it comes to the telephone.
“Believe it or not, nothing serious will happen to your social life if you specify certain hours or certain evenings when you can talk freely on the telephone to your friends and other times when you can’t stay on for more than a minute.”
There are very few books on the market these days that will tell teens how to behave. They dispense advice with a highly moralistic/religious tone or they try to scare teens into good behavior.
As well, finding a celebrity who will tell kids how to treat people with consideration is hard. Finding a celebrity who isn’t condescending to the public is even harder.
In case teens thought Clark was spotless in his own conduct, the very last chapter is a confession. Clark discusses his divorce, ambition gone awry and the payola investigation. It’s a straightforward, honest chapter.
Perhaps that’s why Dick Clark has had such a long career. He treats readers – and viewers – with respect.
As he sums up his philosophy in the beginning of this book:
“Yet the worst kind of manners – the very worst kind of social behavior possible! – is that which makes someone else feel uncomfortable or rejected.”
This code of conduct from the early ‘60s became passé by 1968. Yet it sounded like good, common sense advice to Janine when she read it back in 1963. Indeed, if Janine is ever going to become serious about politics, she will have to re-gauge her sensitivities.
