Peaceful Existence

Mayberry Lifestyle

·       The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised on CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffithportrays the widowed sheriff of the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina. His life is complicated by an inept, but well-meaning deputy, Barney Fife (Don Knotts), a spinster aunt and housekeeper, Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), and a precocious young son, Opie (Ron Howard). Local ne'er-do-wells, bumbling pals, and temperamental girlfriends further complicate his life. 

During my pre-teen and teen years I was raised in a perfect little town.  The weekend following our arrival to our new hometown, the town celebrated one of its three major town-wide holidays, Labor Day (the other holidays are Memorial Day and Independence Day).  If you ever need a welcome into a new town (State, family etc.), this is the best way to make a family feel welcomed. Everyone is in town for the parade, and the celebration at the park.  Family games, food, music, talent show, good old fashion hanging out.

The Posse as the horsemen’s group is called (participating in the parade), had clowns following behind it at the tail end of the parade (scooping behind the horses).  This gentlemen were amongst the community leaders (highly respected).  Other community leaders were in the parade riding in new convertibles on loan from the local car dealership.  In this small town (then population around 3,500) there were no scandals, no dirty politics, and no rivalries between businessmen or even financial institutions.  One barbershop in town, two drugstores, two grocery stores, one post office, one dry cleaners, and two men’s shops, two hardware stores, one JC Penney, two catalog stores (one Sears, and one Montgomery Wards).  You get the picture, perfect co-existence with just enough competition to keep it consumer friendly.  I almost forgot one bowling alley, indoor theater, and drive-in theater, not to mention the usual Eagles Club, and Elks to keep it interesting.

Everyone new everybody on a first name basis.  If a farmer got injured, the community would show up on his property to help with the crops or the harvest.  If someone lost a job, someone would come through with assistance, or a job offer.  We didn’t have a welfare office in town, not even an unemployment office. Idyllic might just be the perfect way to describe it.  Wait, I have another name for it and most of you are familiar with the other name “Mayberry” (from the Andy Griffith Show - television series).

·       The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised on CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffithportrays the widowed sheriff of the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina. His life is complicated by an inept, but well-meaning deputy, Barney Fife (Don Knotts), a spinster aunt and housekeeper, Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), and a precocious young son, Opie (Ron Howard). Local ne'er-do-wells, bumbling pals, and temperamental girlfriends further complicate his life. Andy Griffith stated in a Today Show interview, with respect to the time period of the show: "Well, though we never said it, and though it was shot in the '60s, it had a feeling of the '30s. It was when we were doing it, of a time gone by."

Amongst the favorite pastimes there was fishing, pheasant hunting, deer hunting, and the city sponsored softball teams (played at the park usually followed by a potluck community meal once a week during the league season).  The young adult and older men belong to the volunteer fire department.  Each member responded to a siren that would gather the volunteers at the fire station to head into any direction where fire and danger awaited.  I was seated in the barber’s chair one summer day waiting to start my haircut, when the siren sounded, my barber was a volunteer, so he excused himself, as he ran out the door.  The fire on this occasion was a grass fire on one of the high hills that bordered our small town (the fire had the potential of reaching the wheat fields nearby).

A report came over one of the local radio stations that an accident had occurred as the firemen rushed to the scene of the fire.  A pickup truck carrying 6 men and equipment to the fire had rolled over and 3 men were injured and 3 were killed (our barber was one of the men killed).  Nicest man you would ever want to meet (42 years old left behind a wife and 3 children).  Yet at the time it seemed that anyone of the men in that town would put his life on the line on behalf of the community.  We don’t seem to have that time of ownership anymore; at least not enough to go around and make a big difference like it used to.  You can bet that the whole community was devastated, and they all lent their support to the families of the fallen men.

This small town also had its fair share (more than) of young men serving and dying in Vietnam.  If I could find a place like that once again, I would consider moving to it.  That small town is no longer that innocent anymore.  There once was a scandal (in the last 10 years) where a woman from this small town hired someone to kill her husband (he wasn’t even injured), but it made national news. I’d be willing to bet that she wasn’t a remnant from the early days I described.

I debated whether to include the few negatives from my small town, but in good conscience I had to include it, because I didn’t want you to think that my paradise was still undisturbed, by modern times and crimes.  I have high hopes for our society, to turn things around and hurry to the good times we left behind.  The best is yet to come…