Why Is "Beautiful Dreamer" Played When Garth Williams First Steps Into Willoughby?????????????????????????

                             I am, of course talking about the classic "Twilight Zone" episode, 1960's "A Stop At Willoughby."  It haunted me the first time I saw it, and I have written about it on here before, but the tune "Beautiful Dreamer" caught my attention on this viewing.

                             Why?  Well, so many relate to this story, the idea of being able to abandon the pressures of one's life for something more ideal and serene.  Hell, my last two years at work mirrored Garth Williams' (James Daly) experience

                               The song "Beautiful Dreamer" is about dreams, of coming beauty, of abandonment of sorrow.  It promises things most of us long for at one time or another, just as Garth Williams yearns for Willoughby.  For many can retreat to Willoughby via sleep or reverie fueled fantasies.

                                But for Garth, who was more desperate, it became a need to escape that resulted in..... well, I won't tell viewers unfamiliar with it.

                                 Serling was dissing the pressures of the modern world, and I have to wonder if that included the conventions of heterosexual marriage at the time.  Just watch the scenes between Garth and his wife Janie (Patricia Donahue).  I went through the same thing with relatives, who demanded I get a job day one after finishing college!  Fuck them!  I found my way!

                                   And fortunately, the life I forged turned out to be my own Willoughby.

                                  As Rod Serling said, "It comes with sunlight, and serenity, and is a part of the Twilight Zone."