i was six when this aired

I only caught it because we were on vacation, on the two lane coast road to Seattle from Marin, and we'd get in to motels pretty late each night. The tv would be switched on while we were getting ready for bed. Somewhere in the long swath of redwood forest that stretched north, probably south of where I am now, the rumble of trucks in the night, Steve Allen was asking Kerouac if he was still nervous, and I was thinking that was a rude thing to say to that handsome guy....