Ethyl remembers Mayberry.

I haven't written much lately.  Just haven't had much to say, I guess.  But today I kind of feel compelled to share a memory.  A memory of an old Zenith television with a small screen on which we watched shows like Dragnet and Perry Mason and Leave it to Beaver.  And of course the Andy Griffith show.
My oldest brother was working in Chicago and he bought the television for us.  We could only get three channels and two of them were snowy with poor reception.  We had an old outside antenna that had to be turned if we wanted to change the channel, so somebody had to run outside and manually swing the pole around so we could get a half way decent picture.  That was alright if the weather was good, but it was murder if it was raining or coming a thunder storm.  We would all gather around the tiny little set and there was no debating what we would watch.  We would watch whatever happened to be on if we could pick up a half way decent picture.
Andy Griffith died today.  And I couldn't help thinking about how that show represented a much simpler time.  A time when little old ladies made pickles to enter in the county fair and people sit on their front porches sometimes in the evenings and played guitars and sang old songs.  When the biggest problem the townspeople had to worry about was who would sing in the Fourth of July celebration or which baby would win the prettiest baby contest.  Poor Andy had been appointed the judge for the contest and all the mothers in town started bringing him gifts of food and other goodies to ensure their baby was picked.  Andy, in his wisdom, choose the ugliest baby.  Since every woman knew their baby was far prettier and it was merely an act of kindness on Andy's part to pick that ugly baby, they all went away happy, secure in the knowledge their baby was really the winner.  Or the lesson Opie learned when he killed the mother bird and he ended up having to care for her babies himself.  Or Barney Fife and his talent for always putting his foot in his mouth.. 'Nip it in the bud', Barney, with his one bullet and his inability to ever get his gun out of his holster.
The people who lived in Mayberry were real characters, in more than one sense.  They were allowed to grow and develop on the show as it moved out of the early sixties, a time when the world changed forever.  We the audience were allowed to see them grow and change and really get to know them.  They were characters in another sense too, in the fact they were all originals.  No two alike.  People we could relate to and in a way see ourselves in.
And our tv sets changed too. The screens got larger and black and white morphed into color.  I remember back in the mid sixties when color was first being introduced and there were just a few shows to start with that were in color.  One of the first was Bonanza.  The Cartwrights would ride across the screen with the Nevada territory map burning in the background and that theme song blaring in our ears.  Man, how I loved that show.  And the announcement was always made  'the following program is brought to you in living color on NBC'.  And the NBC peacock would appear with his full color wing span.
Rest in peace, Andy.  You made us laugh and you made us cry and you made us think and you kept us entertained.  And those of us who were around to see the original shows will never forget you.