I have a small confession to make. I think I’m suffering from one of those dreaded personal addictions everyone seems to be getting nowadays. Actually, I know for a fact that I’m addicted, but I’m still apparently in the final stages of denial, and it is very difficult for me to discuss this matter openly and honestly. My unpaid therapist, however, who also happens to be my middle son, has explained to me that if I truly want to lick this thing once and for all, I need to come out of the closet and share my problem with others.
The really embarrassing part is that my particular addiction isn’t very trendy or even worthy of a few good weeks at the Betty Ford Clinic. I am absolutely sure, however, that there are literally hundreds of other seemingly well-adjusted adults who are currently suffering from the same problem, and who like me, wish they were spending their lunch hour in a slightly more productive manner.
Anyway, since openly admitting to a problem seems to be universally accepted as the first step on the road to recovery, I have decided to use this forum to blurt out one of my best kept secrets; that I happen to be hopelessly addicted to Andy and Barney re-runs.
There, it is finally out in the open! Shezaam! I already feel better! No longer will I have to pretend that my heroes are literary giants or sports superstars, when in fact they are Andy Taylor and Barney Fife of Mayberry, USA. And when people ask me what my favorite TV shows is, I won’t have to lie and say Masterpiece Theater.
For years it really wasn’t that bad, or at least that’s what I told myself, because Channel 40, our local re-run station, only ran one episode of the old Andy Griffith Show a day, beginning at noon. Since I couldn’t have cared less about the Dick Van Dyke Show which followed (although Laura Petrie was always wonderful to look at), I was back at work on time, and no one was the wiser. However, Channel 40 has recently begun running back-to-back daily episodes of Andy and Barney, and by the time I get back to the office I’m at least 15-minutes late, and some of my co-workers were beginning to complain.
“Well, Dad,” said my son and therapist, “if it’s starting to affect your work, then it’s time to deal with it.”
He suggested the first thing I needed to do was cut back to just one episode a day. Now that’s easy enough to say, but very difficult to do when the second episode happens to be the one in which Andy meets his old girlfriend at their high school reunion, or when Ernest T. Bass is in town again, throwing rocks through windows, or when Barney is putting some of his best moves on Thelma Lou.
My son’s second suggestion was that I just come to grips with the reality that there is no such place as the town of Mayberry, USA.
“I’m afraid those days are over, Dad. Real sheriffs wear guns, real deputies don’t carry their bullets in their pockets, and no one hangs around a barbershop any longer than they have to anymore.”
After much soul-searching, I have indeed decided that this is probably the real crux of the problem. No matter how outrageous the world was behaving on any given day, there was always at least one place where, for half-an-hour, people treated each other with kindness and genuine concern; where Opie could safely walk the streets kicking cans on his way to the fishing pond, where Gomer, the friendly mechanic, wouldn’t think of over-charging anyone, and where people spent most of their Sunday afternoons after church quietly sitting on the front porch with family and friends shooting the breeze and sipping iced tea.
“You just need a reality check, Dad, that’s all,” my son assured me.
And maybe I do. But as Aunt Bee once said to Andy and Opie as she served them one of her wonderful fried chicken dinners, “I just don’t know what to think of this world anymore.”