Well, bocaratonfan, in two separate online interviews (one with Peggy/Joan, another with Don), for the Season 2 opener on Valentine's Day 1962 they gave their ages as:

1962: Peggy 22 / Joan 32 / Don 36

Are you sure the Advertising Age interview takes place in 1960? Otherwise, the creators have screwed up a little, and Don's age should be 34 for 1960. I was putting Don as being born in 1927. He's just barely too young for WWII (though my Dad enlisted in 1943 at 17, b. Jul 1925). Don could've been in the tailend of WWII if he chose. But they're probably figuring his birth year as 1927.

For the 1944 photo of Don/Dick with Adam, using a birth year of 1927, Don would be 16-17. Wasn't Don/Dick about 10 years old when Adam was born (which by the scene, looked to be the height of the Depression - about 1937-38?) So that would put Adam around 6-7 in 1944?

But you're right, Adam's age at the train station for the Korean War coffin scene (1950-53) is incorrect. Adam should be anywhere from from 12-16, depending on the year it takes place.

I think probably Don's actual birth year is 1927 (he turns 36 some time during the year of 1962). That puts Don at 32-33 in 1960, and Adam at 22-23 in 1960 when he committed suicide.

Granted, that would mean Don enlisted at a late age (probably a 2 year hitch from '51-53).

The interview states June 23, 1960 at the top of the paper

Sharp eyes, kdb. So it's definitely set in 1960 and the age/personal history discrepancy is really apparent. Where was Dick Whitman from 1942 (age 18) to 1950 (age 26). How did he avoid service in WWII when he was of prime age? We know he could have been in Korea 1950-52 (ages 26-28). Did he leave the farm in 1944 after high school and get an education? What did he say about his background to the "real" Don Draper, before the explosion? How does it compare to the "facts" about Draper and 'whitman which Pete states in his blackmail attempt?

I meant, did he leave after high school in 1942...

BTW, the Draft was in full swing during 1942 - 1947 - with men age 18 eligible for immediate induction. Over 10 Million men were drafted during WWII - and young "Dick" would not have been 4F. Nor can I imagine any grounds for his deferment, unless he worked in a munitions plant or in some other kind of factory essential to the war effort. He would not have been left to vegetate on the farm from age 18 - 22. He would have been in the service...if not in combat, some type of position. Maybe that's where he learned the skills he later used in the ad business - the armed forces did produce ads, propaganda, films, etc.
Can anyone else come up with a reason why his draft would have been deferred?

Perhaps there will be more back-story to fill in the missing years. Maybe he was off the radar, maybe he was exempt for some other reason. I would be surprised if this is a case of error though -- Matt Weiner doesn't seem to make any...

You are right, there, Clayton... Matt Weiner is meticulous for sure. Off the subject, did anyone catch Jon Hamm on David Letterman last night? He sure was cute and engaging...very down to earth and appealing, I thought. Talked about growing up in St. Louis and going to Hollywood (after he had taught school awhile) and decided he wasn't getting any younger and wanted to see if he could make it as an actor. He shouldn't have worried!

The apparent discrepancies need not be "errors" - they are undoubtedly intentional and will somehow be dealt with in the succeeding episodes...remember, a major theme is that nothing is simply what it seems to be - and that words and appearances are deceiving - if not overtly, then by omitting or veiling something to prevent you from seeing the complete and true picture (isn't that what much of advertising is about?). If there were ambiguity and this no room for idle speculation such as ours, what would be the attraction of the series?

Let's remember, Dick and Adam are not related at all. As I recall, after the early death of young Dick's alcoholic father, the wicked stepmother "took up with" some new man (I forget exactly how Don phrased it when he confessed his background to Rachel) - and their son, Adam, is not Dick's brother. This is emphasized dramatically by his coloring and appearance (red hair and freckles) whereas the Whitman men are strikingly dark-haired. Adam is perhaps the most pathetic character to appear in the first series. What a victim.

Let me correct my typo's so my prior post makes sense: "If there were NO ambiguity and thUs no room for idle speculation such as ours, what would be the attraction of the series?"

We all love a mystery! And all of the characters are mysterious in my mind.

Season 1 only presented where they all were in that timeframe with one or two brushstrokes for background/character POV, and leaving us to endlessly speculate on background, identity, motivation, direction.

My one thought about the age Don is giving is that he is lying for some reason, but not necessarily to match the real Don Draper's vitals. I think Pete had said the real Don Draper was 43 when he died in Korea.....

@bocaratonfan: I thought Dick/Don's stepmother was pregnant with Adam when Dick's father died. She then married someone else. Because that new "stepfather" said to Dick "this is your brother". Dick/Don replied "he's not my brother". So does that mean Adam and Dick didn't share the same father? I was under the impression that Adam was a half-brother by blood (same father, different mothers). I guess Dick/Don was speaking the truth.

Luv, slight clarification: Pete said, the real Don Draper would be age 43 now (1960)...therefore in 1952, "real" DD was 35, only 7 years older than Dick Whitman.

And I agree, Dick/Don might be lying for some other reason.

What do you think of this: the real DD had a family, including a daughter, who could have been born perhaps as early as 1939 (real DD would have been 22). He never comes home from Korea - just disappears- which people used to be able to do rather easily. Real DD's daughter, now over 21, goes looking for her father - and locates our Don Draper - what if???

I think that man talking to young Dick at Adam's birth was the uncle whom Don referred to a few times. Again, it creates some ambiguity about which we may find out more later on. But I think young Dick was speaking the literal truth - Adam was actually not his brother. Children are like that - we all know they are fond of telling stepparents, "You are not my real mother/father" which is actually true.

I'm going to have to go back and watch that episode (The Hobo Code) with the birth of Adam or is it a later one (Indian Summer) with Adam's backstory. I bought the DVD, will have to check.

Also, quite a while back on the board, one of the bloggers wrote that they felt the Hobo Code spelled out the whole direction of the series. Can't remember the topic it was under, but it was an extremely interesting premise for the whole series. Wish I could read it again.

Yes, I read that. Whoever said it likened the hobo's code with the coded messages between the gay men (elliot and sal) - I guess elliot's mention of the renovations at his hotel was a code invitation for sal to meet him there for drinks and whatever else might ensue....

It was??? I missed that completely, too. Duh, I guess I better go back and watch for 4th time!

yeah, I missed it to, after watching twice. But after reading that comment (like you, I can't remember which topic) I thought about it and it did explain why we never saw a direct invitation from elliot to sal, yet sal shows up at the hotel bar and says he came because he had to see the renovations elliot had talked about (when all the men were standing around talking after their meeting). If I come across the comment, I will let you know.

Yes, I have a friend who is openly gay today. Prior to coming out of the closet, he told me about the gays having a code. In the 80's (and maybe still today), they used to use the rainbow as their sign. They would have little items with rainbows on them and very discretely display. My brother didn't know about this gay code. Once my friend told him about the code, he remembered having a pen with a rainbow along the top. He figured out that everytime he used it in public, he attracted gay men. He didn't know the men were gay, but remembered he felt uncomfortable around them. He was rather embarrased and got rid of the pen immediately. I called him a tease!!

Don/Dick was a "whore child". His dad screwed around on the wife with another woman (hooker ?). She died I am guessing and Dick came to live with his real dad and step-mom.

The real dad dies later.

I think that Don was about the same age in the Hobo code as when Adam is born. And wasn't the guy the same who played the dad ?

As well - there was not a baby present in the Hobo Code storyline when they were at dinner. Makes me think Adam wasn't born yet.

Yes, the real mother, a prostitute, died and little Dick was raised by his real dad and stepmom, until the real dad died. The way I saw it, the parents in the "hobo code" flashback were the real dad, whom Dick/Don strongly resembles, and the stepmom. There was no baby Adam yet. The visiting hobo was referring to the real dad, when he put the "code" sign on the fencepost for "a dishonest man lives here" because Dick's real dad cheated the hobo out of a quarter he'd promised the hobo for working on the farm.
The adult man who was there when Dick fell down the stairs, when Adam was born, is not the same man who was there with the hobo. To me, when Adam was born, young Dick looked a year or so older than he did with the hobo.
Remember how the hobo liked young Dick and made him an honorary hobo? Gave him the code? The hobo was also very polite, polished and personable. His father was just the opposite. Did Don resolve to emulate the hob? Does Don rate people by the hobo code now?

ADAM: watched episode "5G" from the DVD set with Jon Hamm's audio commentary (adult Adam comes to Sterling Cooper - Don rejects him), and he said Adam was Don's brother in the series. They both had the same father.

I like the idea, bocaratonfan, that Don does live by the Hobo Code, whether truly conscious of that fact or not.

If you think about it, Don only looks forward and lives in the moment (as a hobo would naturally), because there is no "future", there's just "going forward" on the road. Don repeats that philosophy over and over to quite a few characters. Except, to move forward so easily and lightly in life, you can't have "attachments" (job, wife, kids, home, mistresses) without it becoming very complicated. He's carrying too much "excess baggage" as they'd call it in modern parlance.

Excellent research, jamm. Ok, so they had the same awful father. Adam was a posthumous child and Dick/Don's 1/2 brother. Very good about Don's hobo philosophy - no past, no longterm future, just "now" and keep moving. He is forced to marry (he got Betty pregnant) and a married man with kids and house was "stable", a necessity for job promotion. Otherwise, he tries to avoid family and emotional ties. Emotional moments with mistresses do not run deep. He does seem loyal to his company, however.

I think Don's problem, bocaratonfan, is that he is totally out of touch with his "heart". Don't think he has ever thought in terms of "emotions". Maybe due to his generation, but it's also part of his being. At some point, Don must have decided that he wanted all of the externals of a "normal, good life" (i.e. decent job, home, wife and kids), but the emotional side of life hasn't occurred to him. Don equates "happiness" (in a sales pitch to a client about advertising) with wanting the "things" advertising pushes before the public to have, own. Probably giving us a clue as to why Don was drawn to advertising in the first place (he wanted to own what he saw in advertisements because he thought it would make him "happy"), and why his belief system about happiness is rather short-sighted and shallow.

jamm, that's a good insight. Don lives on the surface so he's perfect for advertising. Even his moments of seeming introspection are mercenary - like using his family slides for the carousel pitch. He felt it, but just for a moment. That was a great scene.

It really was beautiful, I agree. Where's it's going to get interesting is when Don's philosophy on life (always forward, no looking back, no self-pity, no introspection, buy your happiness) collides with "feelings" or feelings from the past that he can't brush off. As a child, he had an absolutely loveless upbringing and the only person who seemed decent and kind to him was the hobo.

bocaratonfan: Going back to an earlier question you posed - Yes! I think Don did resolve to emulate the hobo as a code for his life.

What really can't be reconciled with that code, though, are having "things" or "attachments". To be seduced by advertising into wanting or attaining things/attachments is completely contrary to the hobo life. But I think you nailed it big time about Don's adopted philosophy on life, and where it originates.

Don Draper's past is one of the most curious discussions of all. I also want to admit that I may have missed an obvious fact, and need some help here. What are people thinking about the real "Draper Family" (at least as is portrayed in the tragic incident during the Korean War). Why haven't we met characters from the soldier/engineer's family who is supposedly the real Don Draper—investigating what happened to their beloved?

Good question, because he obviously wasn't reported MIA.

Well, perhaps during some of the unaccounted space of time when Don could have gone off to serve in WWII, he was instead taking care of "putting to rest" the potentially difficult issues of the real Don Draper's family.

Great comments, friends. I think someone from the "real" Don Draper's life will surface: a child, now grown, whose father never returned from Korea, and they thought he just abandoned them. She finds our Don, and the possiblities are endless. I doubt it will be "real Don's" abandoned wife. Also, we may find out more of Dick/Don's "lost years" from 1942-1952, and answers to this whereabouts during WWII, how he learned social graces, developed his creativity, and the external charm and saavy that make him not only physically attractive, but also socially adept and an advertising whiz.

Ever notice now Don is usually left speechless when he encounters someone else's deep emotions, or has strong emotion of his own? Sometimes he looks like a deer in the headlights. He's reduced to a powerless little boy, like the pathetic, lonely and unloved kid on the Depression-era farm in the flashbacks. And the sheer terror when faced with Pete's threat to reveal his past - not just fear of discovery, but a frantic, almost mindless flight response - as if whatever he experienced as "Dick Whitman" was too much to bear.

jamm, you are so right to say Don's childhood was loveless. No wonder, then, that he can't give or really receive love from his wife (she may be childish, but she does love him deeply) and he feels more comfortable telling his secrets to a woman he knows he'll never be with except in an affair (rachel). On the outside he's an incredibly attractive, successful alpha male - but on the inside, still the powerless, wordless, unloved little boy from the farm.

Yeah, everyone, they are great comments! You're right, bocaratonfan, about Don's speechlessness when confronted with another character's strong emotions. He is neither comforting or able to respond. He either tells them to stop it (Peggy's crying, Betty's sadness) or just stares.

I think Don is in for some real headaches as a partner coming up this season. As the creative "star" he worked alone. Now he will have to be guiding people, empowering and coaching them along more personally to get the best out of them. He'll have to "share" some of himself with others to get the most out of them. I don't know if Don has the emotional skills to do that. Anytime someone doesn't conform to Don's ideas, he either gets angry, speechless, leaves or rejects them soundly. Don's personality isn't really made to be a team player - it requires a trust in others that he doesn't have, I think. Plus, I think Don really likes to be "in control" all the way, another detriment to being a team player.

A long time ago, a manager told me that it was the worst job in the world to be a manager. You had to be a mother, father, teacher, priest, and counselor to your employees, and spent more time doing that then getting any work done. So......

Also, I think Don's immaturity/stunted emotional character is what turned Rachael away from him. She realized that his childish "flight" offer with her was not about his feelings for her at all, just a juvenile attempt to flee from problems. That kind of killed it for Rachael. I doubt we'll ever see Rachael again - she's too well-rounded to hang out with someone at Don's emotional level. (Of course, the actress got another job, too, to cinch the character of Rachael never coming back, I think. Darn!)

Okay, one other comment about Don. I think the reason Don has mistresses or sex outside his marriage is because he isn't obligated to "feel". If you are stunted emotionally, sex with "strangers" or non-spouses is a commitphobe's way of being close without having to get too intimate/close or revealing or caught by obligations. It also keeps Betty at arm's length emotionally, for Don, if she isn't the only source of sex for him. I seriously doubt that Don and Betty have an over-the-top sex life (like all the time), because it would force Don to be too close to Betty. Hence, the other women to keep that distance, yet he obviously wants to be close so he uses casual sex to satisfy that desire, but it's limited emotionally.

yes, Don makes up for his emotional impotence by sexual prowess. I don't think that's limited to men from the 1960 era.

Well, can't let men have all the fun! Actually, I don't think women are less immune to being that way either - Joan for example? I think it can go back ways for either sex.

What was the old cliched saying:

"Men give love in order to get sex; women give sex in order to get love"?

Though Don doesn't offer up love in his extramarital affairs (well maybe Rachael was the first, but he's not thinking of it that way). His sex (at least with Midge) is more like an offer of "I'll scratch your back, if you'll scratch mine". When Midge finds a new playmate, Don very willingly exits with no animosity about the turn of events.

Sorry, I meant "both ways for either sex". Stumbling along here......

Or is it "itch" rather than "back"?

Okay, I am curious about others' thoughts about the line Don uttered in a later episode about "not intending to work at the ad agency forever," and "wanting to do something else with his life." I realize we can guess wildly and never stop, but what underlying motivations may have led Don to utter those lines at just that moment? Was this before he learned of Rachel's trip to Europe or after?

Don just always likes to keep his options to be "untethered" open. Though he didn't think of that when he got married. It's his mindset, I think, to always be able to escape.

Remember when Bert offered him the partnership, Don refused to take a contract, and instead requested a one year limit on the partnership with the option to renew. Bert accepted without a even a raised eyebrow. Bert, I think, felt Don's request was indicative of a man who can't be controlled, tamed or held. Bert seemed to readily accept it because I think it reminded him of Ayn Rand's type of heroes - they are a law unto themselves and answer to no one.

I can't help think Don is a Desperado..you know how the song goes. "You've been out riding fences for so long - you're a hard one, but then you've got your reasons, you better let somebody love you before its too late". Oh, the Eagles knew their stuff..ahh. I think of Don that way. And that's okay if you own the business, but SC is made up of partners. And you all have to play nice together in order for the business to run well. You are right, jamm54, Don is not a team player. He likes being the quarterback, carrying the ball and calling the plays. He thinks he's a team player, but he would never hand the ball off to another player. I think Peggy might be the only one he will trust with his accounts and I don't know why?

I've been enjoying reading all of your comments and theories. I'm sure you are all as excited as I am for the new season to start at last!

I also think as diehard fans of the show, you'll enjoy these articles at spunkybean.com. The first is a look back at the finale from last fall, and the second is a humorous take on the show:

http://www.spunkybean.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=558&Itemid=55

http://www.spunkybean.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=557:commentary-mad-men-action-figures-jul-25&catid=25:featured&Itemid=54

luvmadmen, in one of the audio commentaries from the DVD set, Jon Hamm explained that Don looked at Peggy as being like him. They both had to struggle from nothing, and when given a chance, ran with it.

For all of Don's early remarks about being "blinded by Peggy's earnestness" and regarding her as an insignificant subordinate, after the Belle Jolie campaign, that changes.

Don starts to respect Peggy, and view her as an associate or apprentice. He can "relate" to her creativity and work ethic; her desire to learn the business and advance. Don responds accordingly by mentoring Peggy's abilities. Peggy becomes his peer, and not just his secretary. In turn, they form a bond of teacher/student, mentor/apprentice which develops into a business relationship of trust and understanding, because they both share the same desire and path to achieve in business.

Oh, okay jamm54. That would explain why he hates Pete so much and gives Peggy all the breaks. I bet he allows Peggy all the opportunities because he knows that Peggy could never steal his job. After all she's a single woman in a man's world. Peggy is his little "Grasshopper".

Yes, she is!

Also, Pete wants the position for "status", but isn't interested in "earning" it, like Peggy. Pete feels entitled to a position,.Peggy's grateful and shows it by working her tail off, and is more interested in the work than the title, even.

Pete, although he had two good ideas (Secor laxative, Bethlehem Steel), really just wants the prestige and dollars, not to have to do the "work". He's your classic slacker, not an achiever.

The episode where Don flashes back to Adam's birth, Don says something to the effect of "That ain't my brother," and the mother retorts with, "Yes he is, same daddy, different momma."

Man I hope someone sees this.

How old is Dick Whitman?
How old is Don Draper?

Their ages may be different.

When was Dick doing the hobo thing? Could he have slipped by WWII because of that? Could he maybe not even have a birth certificate? We all take records for granted. My mother was born at home. The doctor took my granparents word for her time and date of birth. In all fairness, that is why the family bible was important. Someone who could write could make sure the history was kept.