87 Comments
User's avatar
Matt Ovaska's avatar

Sean. We were all nobodies. I finally gave up, let go and let God. I was working real hard to be somebody. If I had a penny, I could find a kid with a penny. Together we could buy a 2 cent popsicle and split it. The good news is. God's yoke is easy. His burden is light. I've never had to beg for bread. I'm not talkin about religion. God and I have a relationship and best of all, I'm a somebody, because, He calls me son!

Expand full comment
Julie RN's avatar

VERY Beautifully said, Matt…every single word. You may not be “talkin’ ‘bout religion”, but in my book, you come pretty close…if He calls you Son, you’re there ✝️

Expand full comment
Cindy Gallop's avatar

Devotional thoughts which feed the soul….thanks Matt!

Expand full comment
Sheri K's avatar

Matt, that's beautiful! A personal relationship with Jesus is the only way to get thru this crazy world!

Expand full comment
Pubert Earle Bozemann's avatar

Purty good Matt! I believe you.

Pubert

Expand full comment
Lander Bethel's avatar

Standing up to bullies, learning about meekness, how to listen, and doing a good day's work are all still valuable things, and they aren't as rare as what we might think. They sure make a difference in the world.

Expand full comment
Sy Anne's avatar

That part stood out to me as well.

Blessed are the meek.

Too many bullies these days, and too many people consider them strong.

They’re cowards.

The emperor has no clothes.

Expand full comment
Susie S's avatar

Bullies are cowards, especially in courtrooms. 😉. All bluster, the asses. Most of us see what he truly is....the autocrat is naked. Ha

Expand full comment
MaryEllen Woodside's avatar

I grew up with Mayberry too. Watching it now is like revisiting the best part of my childhood.

Expand full comment
Karen Berger's avatar

I've been to Mt Airy, a zazillion years ago, it seems. With my daughter and grandchildren who lived in NC, we made the trek on a beautiful Fall day. The town is a beautiful little town surrounded by absolutely gorgeous countryside...... this post took me back, to that visit and time with family, but also way.....way.....way back to childhood days and growing up with Opie, and Aunt Bea, and Barney, and.......what a nice quiet life it was back then! In my own life and in Mayberry, USA!

Expand full comment
ricpayson@yahoo.com's avatar

A gracious good morning and happy Wednesday to all yall. Mayberry and the lessons taught on the Andy Griffith Sow are fantasy. But its America as we wish it would be. Wouldn't we all like to sit on Andy's porch and sing along. Go fishing.

Go to the diner and have the special.

Yall have a splendiferous day and...

Peace

Expand full comment
Jan(et) Lord's avatar

A little fantasy now & then is a good thing.

I am ready to once again just sit on a porch & sing along with the others sitting there. I remember as a child fishing in a little wooden row boat. It was fitted with a motor made by the “American Pressure Cooker Company” with a pull cord & it was the best! After a day on the water & cleaning the fish, if we even caught any, we’d load up in the old 1957 Red & White Desoto head to the drive-in for a memorable meal served on a tray that attached to the window by a young girl on roller skates.

Ah….. those were my Mayberry days.

Expand full comment
Susie S's avatar

Ric, the lessons and morals taught/learned from The Andy Griffith Show and Leave it to Beaver didn't used to be fantasy. It was the way good parents raised their kiddos.. unfortunately, nowadays so many parents are more into their phones than they are into being good mentors for their children. It all starts at

home. That's why, anymore, I pity teachers.

Expand full comment
ricpayson@yahoo.com's avatar

The cops too

Expand full comment
Susie S's avatar

Yep ric, that ole Barn was a hoot, for sure. Puts it mildly. Lol

Expand full comment
ricpayson@yahoo.com's avatar

Tell ya what S.S. Im glad I'm retired cause I wouldn't be a teacher or a cop today.

Peace

Expand full comment
Susie S's avatar

I hear that, ric. Too many issues wrecking these professions. Not enough pay OR respect for either, teachers and police, in this country today. Rule of law means nothing anymore is. I'm so sad for our country. We're going down, but fast.

Expand full comment
Pubert Earle Bozemann's avatar

RicCy I wuz gone suggest a poke chop samich kind er day!

YO PEB

Expand full comment
Gloria Miller's avatar

It's a sweet little town...so many life lessons learned from that show!

Expand full comment
Susan Daley's avatar

Maybe more Mayberry and less Real Housewives would better our current situation!

Expand full comment
Susie S's avatar

Here, here, Susan!!! 👍👍

Expand full comment
Ron Mahn's avatar

Mayberry is a fictions but real respite from the turbulence of the late 1950s & 1960s that culminated in the 1970s. It has continued to be a respite for succeeding seasons of cultural turbulence. Many of us who read Sean’s column remember The Cold War; air raid drills;The Cuban missile crisis; assassinations of leaders and people of influence; VietNam, “The Draft”; Woodstock; Archie Bunker; Watergate; and double digit inflation. We needed Mayberry to be real … even if it was for 25 minutes and three commercials. In the years hence everything continues to change, but everything remains the same … we still need the cultural hope that Mayberry offers … resolve of life’s conflicts; happy endings; familiarity; constancy; tolerance of individual idiosyncrasies; healthy closeness of family; sustaining love and enduring friendships.

Expand full comment
Sheri K's avatar

Oh for only three commercials in a half hour show!

Expand full comment
Susie S's avatar

You said it, Ron!!! SAY IT AGAIN. I just hope everyone is listening.

Expand full comment
Pubert Earle Bozemann's avatar

I'm Wid Choo Ron!

Pubert Earle

Expand full comment
Cindy Gallop's avatar

Cultural hope…..indeed

Expand full comment
Holly Lebed's avatar

My daddy was the Andy Griffith of corporate insurance. He looked like Andy and sounded like him. (Also from NC). This made me miss him. Maybe I need to make the trip to Mayberry. ♥️

Expand full comment
Linda Eriksson's avatar

Just do it, Holly!

Expand full comment
Susie S's avatar

DO IT, Holly.

Expand full comment
Linda Eriksson's avatar

If you head north along Rt. 52 from Winston Salem, North Carolina up beyond Pilot Mountain (known to many as "Mt. Pilot"), you'll see an exit that leads to I-77N to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and some of the most spectacular high-country scenary east of the Mississippi River. Stay on Rt. 52 for 10 more minutes, and you'll

roll into the outskirts of Mt. Airy, the hometown of Andy Griffith, otherwise immortalized as Mayberry. I've traveled that road for years. Still, there's something about Mt. Airy, apart from the tourist hype, that beckons me to turn off the highway, look for a place to get lunch, and stay around awhile. There have been changes over the years, but if you walk around the center of town, you almost expect to see Opie walking out of a storefront, Barney maintaining the peace in a police cruiser, or Andy and Floyd deep in conversation just inside the barbershop. In a way, time seems to have stood still in Mayberry - and it feels good to slow down, breathe, and take it in. There's a song that goes, "I miss Mayberry, sippin' on a cherry coke, where everything was black and white...." True that! In election year 2024, it's time to start wearing the one souvenir of The Andy Griffith Show I bought in Mt Airy decades ago - the 2-inch round lapel pin with Andy Griffith's picture on it, that reads, "Andy for President!"

Expand full comment
Leigh Amiot's avatar

The Darlings

The Fun Girls

Ernest T. Bass

Love when they are on the show.

Expand full comment
Cindy Gallop's avatar

Otis Campbell

Barney’s “Citizen’s Arrest” and “Just nip it in the bud!”

Expand full comment
Susie S's avatar

Ha!

Expand full comment
Nazem  Nassar's avatar

Really, was good ole days with Andy Griffith's television series!

(" I always enjoy cutting Barney's hair. His ears kind of wing out, gives you room to work").

Thanks Sean 😊.

Expand full comment
Cindy Gallop's avatar

I grew up in a town much like Mayberry (1950’s - 1960’s),where there was one police officer who kept that position most of my childhood. Our characters were the lady who baked cakes, for every occasion, out of her house, the same barber and beauty shop for years, and the funny and entertaining citizens who frequented the town with much wit and storytelling. In the local school, children felt like a family, there were few problems…and maybe several spankings over the course of the year. The era and setting were close to a perfect world. To live or see this lifestyle of togetherness, with leaders who were skilled at positive problem solving, was true contentment to the soul. Something to be said about a healthy and healing town environment which is the message I gain from our storyteller today.

Expand full comment
Julie RN's avatar

You saved me some time this morning, Cindy, and spoke my heart❣️ Except for your one policeman, we had a small department of several. But the rest of what you wrote describes my childhood to a tea.

If only we could recapture the best of the 50’s and 60’s, what a much better world we would have today‼️

Expand full comment
Cindy Gallop's avatar

We were blessed….weren’t we?

Expand full comment
Susie S's avatar

Nothing like a swift swat on the butt to set 'em straight.

Expand full comment
Ginga Smithfield's avatar

Sean, this is Ginga Smithfield, not Steve Smithfield. You said something in this piece that I've never heard except from my father! I am eighty years old. When I was growing up and wanted to go play with a friend, visit a cousin or other relative, or just generally go somewhere without parental supervision, Daddy would always say to me before I left home, "Be sweet, play pretty, and act like you are somebody!" I always wanted to say back to Daddy, "Who am I supposed to act like I am?" However, I never did ask him that question, because I knew what he meant!! Anyway, I want to thank you for letting me know, after eighty years, that someone else grew up with the same childhood instructions!!

Expand full comment
Vickii of the South's avatar

My daddy always told me to act like somebody. I asked him one day later in life who was it he wanted me to act like. He said " always my angel" that I would be proud to call you mine." As he lay in the hospital bed three days before cancer took him I walked in and he said "there's my angel " (he hadn't said that in a long time.) I went over to hug him and asked him if I was STILL his angel after all those years and he said "of course, you always have been". Guess I turned out to be somebody after all. Miss my daddy every day!

Expand full comment
Tinabeth Chapman's avatar

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing

Expand full comment
Susie S's avatar

Aw, Vicki. 😔 He sounds like my sweet dad. I, too, miss mine very much. But, so many good memories.

Expand full comment
Josie's avatar

Thank you my dear friend for another memory and I remember watching Andy and my mother loved him we would watch it together yes this show is wonderful and what great advice Andy always seem to give and a great father figure he was this show is truly a classic just as the man who stared in it thank you my friend for reminding me of a precious memory with my mother you are a beautiful treasure never forget that 🙏

Expand full comment
Lori C.'s avatar

Andy Griffith was one of my favorites along with the Beverly Hillbillies. I also remember in the early 60’s, begging to be allowed to stay up to the end of The Ed Sullivan show. I had to see Topo Gigio and hear him say “Eddie, kiss me goodnight”.

Expand full comment
Matt Ovaska's avatar

After the Ed Sullivan " really good shoe", the screen went blank until the star spangled banner at 7 am. I had to sit through the Elvis and the Beatles to the best part. Ventriloquist's.

Expand full comment
Sheri K's avatar

We loved Topo Gigio too! We still use many of his lines in family conversations. 💖

Expand full comment