Moving to Mayberry

I’m thinking about moving to Mayberry. I’ve been vacationing there for years, retreating through random episodes of The Andy Griffith Show on the DVR whenever I’ve needed a different time or place or sense or pace. But lately, in the turbulent world of 2017 America, with no where to turn for news and fewer and fewer places to go for entertainment, I find myself going to Mayberry more and more – whenever I’m walking on the treadmill, for example, or sorting socks, or doing any number of mundane household tasks. There is something about Mayberry that is comforting and reassuring and stands in stark contrast with the modern world.

But, you may say, Mayberry doesn’t exist – and  it never did exist. It’s a figment of someone’s imagination. I know, I know, but now it is also a permanent fixture of mine.

I suppose the main thing I love about Mayberry is its people. They’re all characters in every sense of the word. I credit The Andy Griffith Show, along with Mark Twain, Harper Lee, and a few others, with my lifelong delight in quirky characters. And every character in Mayberry is mostly good.

Who could be more honorable and empathetic than Sheriff Taylor? More domestically talented than Aunt Bee? More innocent than Opie? More dedicated and well-meaning than Barney Fife? More long-suffering than Thelma Lou? More devoted than Helen Crump?

Even the show’s troublemakers are endearing, like Otis Campbell, the town drunk who lets himself into jail whenever he’s had too much moonshine.  Or Ernest T. Bass, the hillbilly who throws rocks through windows to announce his arrival in town.

I’d like to sit on the Taylor’s porch on a summer evening and listen to Andy play his guitar. I’d like to go to Wally’s Filling Station to buy a bottle of soda and say hey to Goober.  And I would be delighted to get a ticket for jaywalking from Deputy Barney Fife.

I never saw The Andy Griffith Show on primetime television, but watched it years later in after-school reruns sandwiched between Gilligan’s Island and Leave It to Beaver. Maybe that’s why Mayberry so imprinted on my brain. I must associate it with after-school snacks and perfect peace.

People often complain about the effects of television on young people’s minds, and I would agree that most kids watch too much TV and the vast majority of programs on television are not worth watching, but I am grateful that I paid attention to The Andy Griffith Show. Even as a child, I sensed that it was idealistic, but what is wrong with focusing on the ideal? The ideal may serve as a model for the real.

When the world of 2017 feels inhospitable, even acidic at times, join me in cueing up an episode of The Andy Griffith Show and feel the stress of modern living melt away.