A Place Called Mount Airy

“Why do so many people visit Mount Airy?” I ask the old man at the antique store.

“Hmm?” he answers.

I’m in North Carolina. Andy Griffith’s hometown. A humble American village that receives approximately three kajillion visitors each year.

“Say again?” the old shopkeeper says.

The man adjusts his hearing aids.

So I re-ask my question. Why do so many people visit Andy Griffith’s hometown? And I ask this question, mainly, because it’s always been a minor mystery to me.

I mean, I love Andy as much as the next Joe Six-Pack. But Andy Griffith wasn’t The Beatles or Mick Jagger. He wasn’t a historic figure, a religious icon, a Renaissance sculptor or a sex symbol. He was a TV star, for crying out loud. Which puts him in the same category as, for example, Regis Philbin.

“People come to Mount Airy,” says the shopkeeper, “because you can’t never have too much Mayberry.”

It’s a trite answer, ultra clichéd and a little too neat and tidy for me. Although it’s a great line that probably woos the tourists.

But it doesn’t explain why later this afternoon, when visiting the Andy Griffith Museum, I encounter biblical throngs waiting outside the gates. Think: the Children of Israel wearing Reeboks.

Where do they all come from? And why?

It’s 90 degrees outside, but the weather doesn’t stop them. There isn’t a single pair of pants in the crowd without a sweat stain on the butt. And yet everyone is cheerfully waiting in line.

Why? I keep asking myself. Why are we here?

We come from all over. Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, New Mexico, Minnesota and South Dakota. I didn’t even know South Dakota was a real place.

I ask one man how many miles he traveled to see the museum.

“It took us 29 hours by car,” he says.

I ask why he came.

He shrugs. “It’s Mayberry.”

After the museum, I visit all the essential tourist traps. I visit the barber shop. Andy’s childhood house. The bookstore. I go to the Snappy Lunch on Main Street, where I stand in line for approximately 53 minutes to eat a lukewarm fried pork-chop sandwich.

There, I meet two college-age boys from Wichita Falls, Texas.

“We grew up watching the show,” says one kid. “My mom would put it on TV when we were babies. Dude, I have a major crush on Ellie Walker.”

Ellie Walker was played by Elinor Donahue in the 1960s. Currently, Donahue lives in Tacoma and is 85 years young. She could be this kid’s great-grandmother.

“I’d still totally marry her,” says the kid. “She is hot.”

In a gift shop, I meet one woman who traveled here from Rome, Italy. Again I ask, why. Why would someone from the Eternal City visit Surry County, North Carolina?

“I come because Mayberry was my first experience with America,” says the Italian woman. “I always wonder if this is really what America is like. Is America really so wonderful?”

I ask whether the woman still holds the same romantic notions for America, now that she has visited.

She nods. “I love this country,” she says. “But I do not love your interstates. Your drivers are insane.”

At dusk, I drive to the Mayberry Motor Inn. This weekend, several hundred fans gather to watch Andy Griffith episodes on the lawn beneath the stars. They come here from all over the U.S.

I am introduced to a man from Canton, Ohio. I meet a youthful couple from Marceline, Missouri. I shake hands with a software consultant from Scottsburg, Indiana. Georgia. Alabama. Mississippi. You name it.

“We’re a big family,” says Allan, the man who started this event. “That’s what we are. If you love Mayberry, you’re officially part of our family. Because let’s face it, we ARE Mayberry. You and me.”

The episode on the projector played. The crickets rubbed their legs together. The night sky was nothing but constellations.

I sat on a lawn chair alongside hundreds of others and whistled with the opening credits. I was remembering a long lost boyhood I have tried to forget.

Namely, I remembered the kid I used to be. A hapless redhead who sat before a Zenith console TV, cross-legged on the floor, two centimeters from the screen. A kid who always whistled with the opening credits.

I’m remembering this kid’s broken homelife. The turbulent household he grew up in. The shattered family system that formed him. The tormented father who left this world too early. The mother who raised me alone. The entire shipwreck that was my childhood.

I remember growing up, feeling like an outsider among the human race. I remember feeling like nobody.

I remember the pain of each rejection. Every harsh word ever said to me. I remember each time I was belittled. Trivialized. Overlooked. Misunderstood. Downtalked. Spurned. Teased. Disappointed.

Sometimes, I remember too much.

But somehow, here tonight, among all these joyous people, I’m remembering other things, too. Good things.

I remember why I came to love a rural sheriff who taught me to stand up to bullies. To be meek. To listen more than I talk. To do a good day’s work. And to act like somebody.

I guess the old shopkeeper has got a point.