I wanted to see the sweaters and the hair. I had to get a taste again of the 1980s – a moment when I could imagine myself back there, but with what I know now. I know that sounds as cliche as anything I can imagine since Newhart is partially legendary because of its famous 80s-style sweaters that Joanna and Stephanie wore, sweaters whose outlandish designs could only be challenged in outlandishness by their hot-rolled and teased 80s hair. But I remember staring at that hair and those sweaters when I was a 14 year-old-girl with a flat chest and flat hair with a longing for all things poofy and glamorous. I wanted to be like Joanna and Stephanie, even though I completely understood even then that Stephanie pranced around the inn with petulance and less-than-intelligent snobbery, and Joanna lorded over the inn with an almost shrewish nature (if not shrewish, at least a sense of perpetual exasperation with the characters around her). They seemed to serve as bookends of the continuum of my aspirations: both beautiful, thin women, but on one end, a sort of pouty expectation and sense of self-worth that led others to do for her as she demanded, and on the other end, a sharp-witted, self-controlled woman who could take care of herself and those around her. I oscillated with longing to be both because clearly they were the center of the show; they were the forces that drove the plot while other colorful characters like George, the handyman, and eccentric neighbors Larry, Darryl, and Darryl served as entertaining fringe characters.

And by the way, why did beautiful and thin Joanna and Stephanie wear those long sweaters with shoulder pads? Yes, I know we all wore them in the 80s, but they were thin women, women who didn’t need to make their hips look slimmer by exaggerating their shoulder width. As a flat-chested teen who had lived with a perpetual voice that said, “you would be so pretty if you lost some weight” looping through my brain like a broken record, I knew I needed to wear sweaters like that. Accentuate the positive with v-neck sweaters that drew others’ eyes to my face. Tease the bangs and the hair at the crown of my head while holding the hair outward above my ears and hairspraying it until it froze to draw eyes away from curvy body. Hide those curves in sweater and sweatshirts that reached my thighs. So I watched them every week as if they were hosting a how-to on being a glamorous 80s woman. I never understood how Stephanie dusted and cleaned toilets while maintaining bouncy blonde curls tied back only with a sweet pink ribbon that matched her pink lip gloss. And Joanna’s sparkly sweaters and gray, perfectly-creased dress pants with matching pumps were only seen in my world at elegant dinner dates and parties, yet she greeted guests along with New England country bumpkins in such attire. And every man on the show bowed and responded to their perfection.

The only character who seemed out of place and extraneous was the title character himself – Bob Newhart’s character, Dick, the owner of the quaint inn who walked around the set with a continual blank face and stuttering, slow response to the vital and interesting and funny characters around him. Why would Joanna, beautiful and lively Joanna, marry a short, balding, self-involved writer of nonfiction travel and/or instruction books who seemed pale among the colorful life all around him? I never understood when I was 14.

I understood when I watched the show again at 45.

At 45, I no longer want to be some mish-mash version of Stephanie and Joanna. While I still long to be as beautiful and stylish as they were, I now want to approach life like Dick does.

When Stephanie and Michael act silly and make ridiculously condescending comments to the “peasants” who run the inn, Dick pauses for a couple of seconds and then makes his remark: a double-edge comment that only the truly attentive understand as a biting social commentary packaged as a humble acquiesce to Stephanie’s and Michael’s superiority. He doesn’t call them out as ignorant snobs; he plays along, making them think they have the upper hand, but the smart kids know different.

And when the silly and self-important townspeople erupt in a tense battle over the placement of a stop sign or who can run for town council, Dick stands calmly in the midst of the chaos. He pauses and then calmly responds with another pseudo-humble comment that cleverly disguises just how deeply his comment cuts through their absurdity. 

And the height of irony arrives when Larry, Darryl, and Darryl arrive on the scene. I always thought of them as the modern version of the Darlings from the Andy Griffith Show – country bumpkins who persist in their old-world ways without seeing just how removed they were from the modern world. And there is definitely that element present with Larry, Darryl, and Darryl, but another, subtle element exists, too. Larry, Darryl, and Darryl are the only other characters who can match Dick’s wit and insight. Yes, they border on the absurd sometimes themselves, but other times, they manage to cut through life’s absurdity even more succinctly and wisely than Dick. They may not be sophisticated and understand restaurant cleanliness and traditional dinner protocol as Joanna tries to teach them when they purchase and try to run the cafe near Dick’s inn, but they understand human nature and history and values in a way the other characters ignore or overlook. 

So, now at 45, I have come to a new conclusion. I want to look like Stephanie and Joanna, but I want act like Dick. I want to be the one who can see through the absurdity around me but resist my native urge to lash out with an emotional tirade. Instead, I want to pause, acknowledge their silliness with my silence, and then respond with a poised comment, full of meaning available to the attentive, but pleasing enough to those around me, allowing them to think they are right, that they still have the upper hand, that I am truly on their side. And then, when I think I have the upper hand, when I think I am the smartest in the room, to remember that Larry, Darryl, and Darryl still have something to teach me and to be smart enough to listen to them. 
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