Today We Honour Two American cultural icons!

Rob Reiner

The first of these is the late Rob Reiner, who played Meathead in the hit Seventies sitcom All in the Family, the foil to the bigoted Archie Bunker portrayed, always forcefully, by Carroll O’Connor.

Bunker had a “Love it or Leave it” approach to America. For his part, Meathead, with his long hair and sympathy for draft dodgers during the Vietnam war, appeared to understand that the hard time Bunker experienced growing up in the Great Depression had a great deal to do with molding his character.

These two also heralded the stark divisions seen today in the United States of America.

Reiner went on to be the acclaimed director of numerous feature films, the most fondly remembered being When Harry Meets Sally, in which Harry, played by Billy Crystal, resists falling in love until he finally does just that with the warm and very loveable Sally, played by Meg Ryan.

Reiner was also associated with many progressive causes, such as same sex marriage, and liberal politics.

Reiner and his wife Michele were killed in their home, allegedly by their son Nick who had a tragic history of addiction. 

Unfortunately, after the deaths were made public, Reiner was vilified by the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, who did not extend sympathies to Reiner’s surviving family members, and instead commented that Reiner “was a very bad person for our country.”
This, although, U.S. Presidents have traditionally served as the “Consoler-in-Chief” for the American people. 

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Dick Van Dyke and wife Arlene

On the contrary, Trump commented that Reiner and his wife died “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding and incurable disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as T.D.S.”

Trump critics noted Reiner’s sympathetic response following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the young right-wing activist greatly admired by Trump. Reiner sought to comfort Kirk’s widow and family about his passing: “That’s not acceptable, that should never happen to anybody”.

The other Against the Flow column’s great American cultural icon is Dick Van Dyke who on Dec. 13 turned 100 years old. On his birthday, Chris Martin, lead singer of, the British Band, Cold Play, sang a beautiful tribute to Van Dyke, who promptly showed he still has his fine dance moves, and which he demonstrated in his white beard and hair and his dapper white suit and tie.

Despite some struggles in his life, including alcoholism, which he overcame, Van Dyke, is known in the business as a fun-loving, smiling, and professional actor and performer.

This writer told a friend recently: “I don’t think I would want to live until I’m 100”, but the friend replied that if one could dance like Van Dyke at that age, “why not?”

Van Dyke has won six Emmy awards, and his movie credits include Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He often praises his wife Arlene Silver, 46 years younger than him, for helping him to stay youthful.

He also says true love for a spouse as greater than the love for oneself.
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There is a strong connection between these two great cultural personalities. Reimer’s father, Carl Reimer, created the Dick Van Dyke Show.

Together, Reimer and Van Dyke demonstrate what is still best about America.
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Former U.S. President Barack Obama said it well about Reiner. “Rob’s achievements in film and television gave us some of our cherished stories on screens. But beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action.”

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