I miss Mayberry, somewhat. Those of us who have been around the block a time or two will remember Mayberry as the idyllic rural town where Sheriff Andy Taylor and his cohorts lived in post ’50s harmony in “The Andy Griffith Show.” I grew up in a small town complete with a corner drugstore and soda fountain. Some of my peers lament vanishing America, bemoaning that “the good old days” are behind us. The Mayberry lifestyle is gone, replaced by a collective awareness of the dangers that threaten our current society. Ignorance may be bliss, but it can also be demeaning and restrict the ability to make meaningful changes.
People are more sophisticated now. In those days, the men worked all day, hung out with their buddies afterward, and often shot something to eat for dinner. There wasn’t much thought about the impact on the animal and the consequences of human consumption of meat. Women cared for the house and children. Not my idea of fun. I would have never made a good Mayberry woman. Even if I knew how to cook a roast, ham, or woodland creature, I just couldn’t do it. I never eat anything that once had motor skills. I can’t help but wonder what the entrée was like in its former life. I empathize with animals, which does not make for a good meat eater or cooker of pot roasts. However, Aunt Bea (Frances Bavier) could whip up a five-course meal, complete with a dead animal, in minutes!
The women in Mayberry were typically teachers or secretaries, but they were self-sufficient. My typing barely suffices, and my domestic skills are somewhat lacking. I don’t sew, knit, or crochet. I tried those things but always ended up with a finished product that looked like it had been in a windstorm or run over by a very big truck. Expensive jewelry means little to me, and I would never consider owning or wearing anything made of fur. Yep, I’m definitely a Mayberry outcast.
Gomer Pyle was celebrated for his beautiful voice. Of course, Mayberrians simply ignored the fact that he was gay, if they even knew. I’m sure if he had tried to marry Floyd the barber or somebody else, though, it would have become a huge town scandal and he would probably have been ostracized. Gomer would be banned from community activities just in case he was contagious. No more singing in the church choir. Interestingly, no one in the entire town was married that we know of. Hmm.
Mayberry got a lot of things right. I like Mayberry because people were nice to one another. The sheriff didn’t shoot people at will, and deputy sheriff Barney Fife was only allowed one bullet, at the whim of the sheriff, although he was probably less inclined to shoot someone than the average disgruntled citizen in today’s version of Mayberry. Fife was a kind-of-lovable oaf. Today, he would probably be heavily medicated and not allowed to own a firearm, which might be a good thing. The town drunk, Otis, put himself in jail to “sleep it off.” He knew that he was a danger to his Mayberry family when drunk, so he simply removed himself from society until he was better able to cope.
Opie could walk to school by himself, and it was expected that he would actually stay there the entire day. If he didn’t, the teacher would notify his father, and Opie would be punished, not physically but through loss of privilege. I think Andy was dating Opie’s teacher, Helen, so Opie couldn’t hide his indiscretions. Opie was free to hang out with his friends after his homework was done and play baseball or whatever. He didn’t have a cell phone, so if he wasn’t home in time for dinner, his father would go looking for him in a police car. The fear of retribution was enough to keep him out of trouble most of the time.
No one ever worried that someone might enter the school and kill people. School shootings hadn’t been invented yet. The post office in Mayberry was a safe place to work. No one would ever think of shooting up the place, even though everyone owned a gun. It just isn’t very friendly to settle disputes with firearms. The entire community would ostracize you. An idea of a suicide bomber was even more bizarre. That was just crazy talk. A remnant of vanishing America, Mayberry was a safe place to live.
So, what went wrong? Maybe it’s the lack of basic respect and civility. If Andy objected to the way his neighbor maintained his property, he had to deal with it directly rather than on Facebook, and that had consequences. He and his neighbor could discuss the situation because they were friends and could come to an amiable solution that worked for both parties. Then they could sit on the front porch and have a few sodas. Don’t get me wrong. Technology is wonderful and has saved me from myself many times. But it’s all too easy to disconnect from genuine encounters. We believe that we are “too busy” to talk things out over a soda or a glass of wine — and that, to me, is scary.
Life in the vanishing America depicted in Mayberry was idyllic in some ways, but with today’s increased awareness comes increased responsibility. We are more cognizant of the fragility of life and the many threats to our very existence. There is much more at stake. Hopefully we can find a front porch big enough for all of us to have neighborly discussions about saving the world. Just saying.
