Back to Mayberry

When life gets to be too much -- usually when I'm going through a trying period of illness, surgery, and recovery -- and I find myself in a limbo where I can't get out and about or active, I find myself going back to the simple pleasure of watching The Andy Griffith Show. I have the entire DVD collection, and I like to watch them from the beginning and in consecutive seasons. It takes a week or more, depending on what else is going on.

Excy knows when he comes home and finds me stretched out on the chaise lounge watching the antics of Mayberry, Barney mugging, Andy dispensing fatherly advice to Opey, or the gang forcing down some of Aunt Bee's kerosine pickles, I'm working through a funk the best way I know how, and he walks gingerly.

There's something so comforting about going back to the small town where everyone's pressing concerns are usually harmless and often trivial, and no one is cruel or (knowingly) uncaring....where you know that sometime in those 30-minute episodes your throat will grow tight and your heart will swell, or you'll crack up at what a goob Gomer or Barney are. Cracking a smile or tearing up definitely helps one forget their own reality for awhile.

Viva Mayberry! Forever may it reign.