I admit I’ve always mocked Trekkies, those folks so hooked on the Star Trek TV series they have enormous fan clubs all over the world and meet for “conventions,” wearing absurdly dorkish pointed rubber ears and ski PJs, and where they chatter in Trekkiespeak called “Klingon” which, by the way, they all understand!
Now to me, that’s weird. So I chuckle derisively and feel superior. Until uh oh, in a rush of embarrassment one evening I realized I too am hopelessly hooked on an old TV show and am able to speak the dialogue word for word in unison with the actors in every rerun. Yes, it’s that TV classic, great artistic work of peerless drama, The Andy Griffith Show.
I am just simply nuts about those corny old back and white productions and I’ve had a secret obsession for the star of that show for years.
No, it’s not Sheriff Andy Taylor. Or Otis Campbell, the town drunk. No, not Emmett, the fixit guy. Goober, Gomer, or Ernest T.? Get serious. Not Howard Sprague or Mayor Stoner, or Floyd Lawson the barber, or Briscoe Darling, and of course Opie was just too young for my ardor.
It’s Barney Fife. Dear little funny sweet undernourished high-voiced know-it-all cranky self-important bantam-cock Barney. The true star of the Andy Griffith show. Was he adorable or what!?
There he was, every week in his crisp uniform with his whistle and his one-allowed bullet stored in his shirt pocket, his own personal Rocky’s Theme playing in the background as he swaggered off in pursuit of the bad guys in Mayberry of which, disappointingly, there were too few.
Or, off to the dance with the love of his life, the endlessly patient and perpetually un-proposed-to Thelma (Thelmer) Lou, wearing his favorite old salt-and-pepper suit, (perfect for doing the dip,) and wide brimmed polished straw hat.
Every chance he got, kindly, wise ol’ Andy was good to ol’ Barn, letting the little guy take the kudos when Anj was the one who’d really earned them. And patient? Andy was endlessly patient with and protective of Barney when he screwed up, which he did perpetually, although nobody ever dreamed of using cuss words like “screwed up” back in Mayberry.
I never did like Helen Crump, the school marm (and coincidentally Opie’s teacher,) Andy eventually married. She was kind of a sourpuss. Stiff. I’d rather he’d married the much more appealing Ellie, the town pharmacist, but Ellie sort of vanished after a couple of seasons.
Aunt Bee Taylor was Everymother and I loved her dearly. Plump, always home, always preparing scrumptious fat-laced dinners for Andy and Opie (and any Mayberrians who dropped in) canning pickles (they tasted like kerosene,) growing roses for the contest at the county fair, running the Mayberry Civic League, and Garden Club, scolding Opie for stealing apples, being such dear friends with Clara Edwards the church organist (and friends from their grammar school days when Bee was the “best dribbler” on the girls’ basketball team) singing in and attending church — Aunt Bee was definitely not a woman of this century. I’ll bet she smelled like cookie dough, furniture polish and lavender. I miss her.
That cheeky little Opie rejected Aunt Bee at first when Andy brought her home to take the place of Opie’s (never really discussed) deceased (or vanished) mother. (Maybe she ran away from boring old Mayberry to Mt. Pilot to live the high life. Who knows?) Well, Aunt Bee stayed and they even wrote in a couple of boyfriends for her along the way. She decided to not marry one or two, opting to continue caring for Andy and Opie. What a woman. (One swain was a fiendish dude, out to do mayhem in the Taylor household, and it was Ol’ Barn who exposed him and sent him packing. Well, Barney got the credit, but Andy did the dirty work. As usual.)
Was it that silly impossible TV show that greatly influenced me to convince–OK, to force my family to drop everything in their lives and move to a small(ish) town in Maine? You bet it was and I’m not in the least ashamed to admit it. Did I find Mayberry North? In lots of ways, yes.
I could go on for a dozen more pages giving more details about that revered TV show, but I digress from my beloved Barney. (He was Andy’s cousin, you know.) This man, the master of the Important Sniff, didn’t have to fly around lost in space forever to be my hero. He just had to be Barney Fife, a man who was content to dedicate his life to being Deputy Sheriff forever, and who I forgive for spending a little quality hanky-panky time down at the diner with Juanita when Thelmer Lou’s back was turned. And why not? After all, he was only human. OK, he was no Captain Kirk, but Barney Fife, when he had night duty down at the jail and sang Otis to sleep while wearing his striped jammies, oh boy, he had a certain something, I can tell you that! I have an autographed photo of Don Knotts aka Barney Fife hanging by my desk, and I speak to him every day. Thanks Barney!
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