Welcome to our community

Be apart of something great, join today!

Register Log in

UNC, Chapel Hill, and Carborro History

  • Thread starter Thread starter donbosco
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies: 839
  • Views: 18K
  • Off-Topic 
My parents built their dream house in SW Orange County. They moved in the winter of 1995-96.

Fran hit
donbosco said:
IMG_5005.jpeg
Click to expand...
I look at that photo of Cat Baby and think, “I remember him being A LOT fatter than that.”

Maybe it’s a sign of how much fatter we Americans are today than back in Cat Baby’s day.
 
I know this is a stretch but Andy Griffith lived in Chapel Hill (I always heard Swain Hall was his dormitory) and graduated from Carolina. Hope this is OK.

IMG_5035.jpeg

It is hard to fathom what a non-North Carolinian could think of ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’ It premiered when I was 2 & closed when I was not quite 10 (April 1, 1968). It is also hard to know what the show has done FOR North Carolina and North Carolinians. When the character of Sheriff Andy Taylor first appeared, in an episode of ‘The Danny Thomas Show,’ he was more a bad cop than a good one and in some early episodes of his own show Griffith continued in that role - as an opportunist and trickster. But that’s not the Andy that we know now that Griffith made a conscious move away from that representation by the second season. That’s a good thing for us all - if any of you have seen ‘Face in the Crowd’ you know the kind of malevolence that Griffith could muster up. Thankfully Sheriff Taylor stepped away from that and toward the honest, wise, and thoughtful lawman that we love.

The show has never been off the air and you can binge it today on TVLand. PlutoTV has an All-Mayberry channel I’m told. It can come very close to a meditative experience for me to watch even a single episode - two can approach Zen.



I’m aware of the show’s shortcomings - it is Uber-white (though there were African Americans guesting over the years to a small degree), often, but not always, chauvinistic, and while ostensibly set in the 1960s, utterly without any true historical context. There are also a lot of stereotypes, not the least of which is that of the rather dim-witted country bumpkin. The Briscoe Darlin family certainly added to Appalachian hillbilly stereotypes. All of THAT said, Pharmacist Ellie and Helen Crump were strong women refusing to live traditional lives — that skeet-shooting woman was too. And think about the forgiveness - Otis’ drunkenness, all flavors of meanness and jealousy, even the self-centered self-absorption that was growing then and today so dominates our society - it seemed that at least somebody received some exoneration by the end of every show. Even ‘Old Ben Weaver.



Historian Gary Freeze has argued that as Sheriff of Mayberry and the county - remember Andy goes out of the confines of Mayberry on visits, most memorably to the home places of The Darlings and the silver-throated Rafe Hollister - that Andy Taylor represents government. He goes farther to say that in this, Andy Griffith, the actor, has injected The New Deal, activist and problem-solving, of his Mount Airy childhood into the show. Sheriff Andy Taylor is exactly that kind of force in Mayberry. Freeze has also suggested that as Tragic Theater is to Greece so is ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ to North Carolina and popular US culture.



It is a Tar Heel gift to America.

There has been an incredible amount of philosophizing over Mayberry - one angle being the Urban-Town-Rural trio in which the city (Raleigh, Mount Pilot - hurried businessmen and crooks - smokey-breathed hussies) is a place to be, at best, cautiously dealt with. So too must one be wary of the deep woods and mountain hollers (“It’s me it’s me it’s Ernest T!). While both places yield lessons and even good things it’s the (small) town where goodness and yes, forgiveness, thrives.



Of course some of you have deep thoughts on Mayberry. On Gomer, Barney, Aunt Bee, Opey, and Otis. The Philosophy of Floyd, the Profundity of Howard Sprague, and the Gospel of Goober are each somebody’s favorite point of view on a given day. I could go on with the Mayberry Thoughts. Here’s a link to a some thoughts from Andy and Public Health that a lot of folks enamored with ‘The Good Ole Days’ in Sheriff Taylor’s county would do well to consider. https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/article254146273.html



In 1972 I was in high school and the strangest, most unexpected thing happened — Aunt Bee (Francis Bavier) moved to Siler City — a synchronicity almost beyond comprehension since the town was often mentioned (why I do not know) on the show. That same Christmas, along with everyone in the Chatham Central High School Concert Choir, I appeared in a Christmas Pageant with Ms Bavier as our surprise guest star, completely stunning all of #DeepChatham. I’ll write more of that halcyon moment eventually I am sure.



And speaking of music — that song, written by Earl Hagen was actually titled “The Fishin’ Hole.” It was Hagan that so beautifully and memorably whistled that tune that evokes such sublime sentiments and is so deeply lodged in our collective memories. Many years ago while living in Guatemala, I would sometimes walk along whistling the song in the same way that I often wore a “North Carolina” sweatshirt — in hopes that it might spark a chance meeting with a kindred spirit. One afternoon as I passed by a shack-like cantina on the outskirts of Antigua — yes, whistling “The Fishin’ Hole,” — a fairly well-sotted expatriate rushed out from the darkened doorway, lured by the sound. We met and I stepped inside to enjoy a Liter of Gallo Lager and talk a bit of Goober, Gomer, and Floyd the Barber. I met other folks because I whistled that theme as well.



#OTD (October 3, 1960) ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ debuted on CBS. 8 months earlier Griffith intro-ed Andy Taylor in an episode of ‘The Danny Thomas Show.’ Griffith was straight man to Mayberry, a mythos based ‘to a degree’ on his hometown of Mt. Airy, NC. The show closed at #1 in ‘68. Premier of an American Classic, The Andy Griffith Show

Ever wonder where Helen Crump and Miss Ellie went to college? Howard Sprague?
 
Ddseddse said:
Are you trying to say that a bowl of tomato flavored cheese with a single lasagna noodle sticking out of it is somehow "not good"?
Click to expand...
To be fair, tomato-flavored cheese sounds like one of the better things the human mind has yet to come up with.
 
donbosco said:
I know this is a stretch but Andy Griffith lived in Chapel Hill (I always heard Swain Hall was his dormitory) and graduated from Carolina. Hope this is OK.

IMG_5035.jpeg

It is hard to fathom what a non-North Carolinian could think of ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’ It premiered when I was 2 & closed when I was not quite 10 (April 1, 1968). It is also hard to know what the show has done FOR North Carolina and North Carolinians. When the character of Sheriff Andy Taylor first appeared, in an episode of ‘The Danny Thomas Show,’ he was more a bad cop than a good one and in some early episodes of his own show Griffith continued in that role - as an opportunist and trickster. But that’s not the Andy that we know now that Griffith made a conscious move away from that representation by the second season. That’s a good thing for us all - if any of you have seen ‘Face in the Crowd’ you know the kind of malevolence that Griffith could muster up. Thankfully Sheriff Taylor stepped away from that and toward the honest, wise, and thoughtful lawman that we love.

The show has never been off the air and you can binge it today on TVLand. PlutoTV has an All-Mayberry channel I’m told. It can come very close to a meditative experience for me to watch even a single episode - two can approach Zen.



I’m aware of the show’s shortcomings - it is Uber-white (though there were African Americans guesting over the years to a small degree), often, but not always, chauvinistic, and while ostensibly set in the 1960s, utterly without any true historical context. There are also a lot of stereotypes, not the least of which is that of the rather dim-witted country bumpkin. The Briscoe Darlin family certainly added to Appalachian hillbilly stereotypes. All of THAT said, Pharmacist Ellie and Helen Crump were strong women refusing to live traditional lives — that skeet-shooting woman was too. And think about the forgiveness - Otis’ drunkenness, all flavors of meanness and jealousy, even the self-centered self-absorption that was growing then and today so dominates our society - it seemed that at least somebody received some exoneration by the end of every show. Even ‘Old Ben Weaver.



Historian Gary Freeze has argued that as Sheriff of Mayberry and the county - remember Andy goes out of the confines of Mayberry on visits, most memorably to the home places of The Darlings and the silver-throated Rafe Hollister - that Andy Taylor represents government. He goes farther to say that in this, Andy Griffith, the actor, has injected The New Deal, activist and problem-solving, of his Mount Airy childhood into the show. Sheriff Andy Taylor is exactly that kind of force in Mayberry. Freeze has also suggested that as Tragic Theater is to Greece so is ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ to North Carolina and popular US culture.



It is a Tar Heel gift to America.

There has been an incredible amount of philosophizing over Mayberry - one angle being the Urban-Town-Rural trio in which the city (Raleigh, Mount Pilot - hurried businessmen and crooks - smokey-breathed hussies) is a place to be, at best, cautiously dealt with. So too must one be wary of the deep woods and mountain hollers (“It’s me it’s me it’s Ernest T!). While both places yield lessons and even good things it’s the (small) town where goodness and yes, forgiveness, thrives.



Of course some of you have deep thoughts on Mayberry. On Gomer, Barney, Aunt Bee, Opey, and Otis. The Philosophy of Floyd, the Profundity of Howard Sprague, and the Gospel of Goober are each somebody’s favorite point of view on a given day. I could go on with the Mayberry Thoughts. Here’s a link to a some thoughts from Andy and Public Health that a lot of folks enamored with ‘The Good Ole Days’ in Sheriff Taylor’s county would do well to consider. https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/article254146273.html



In 1972 I was in high school and the strangest, most unexpected thing happened — Aunt Bee (Francis Bavier) moved to Siler City — a synchronicity almost beyond comprehension since the town was often mentioned (why I do not know) on the show. That same Christmas, along with everyone in the Chatham Central High School Concert Choir, I appeared in a Christmas Pageant with Ms Bavier as our surprise guest star, completely stunning all of #DeepChatham. I’ll write more of that halcyon moment eventually I am sure.



And speaking of music — that song, written by Earl Hagen was actually titled “The Fishin’ Hole.” It was Hagan that so beautifully and memorably whistled that tune that evokes such sublime sentiments and is so deeply lodged in our collective memories. Many years ago while living in Guatemala, I would sometimes walk along whistling the song in the same way that I often wore a “North Carolina” sweatshirt — in hopes that it might spark a chance meeting with a kindred spirit. One afternoon as I passed by a shack-like cantina on the outskirts of Antigua — yes, whistling “The Fishin’ Hole,” — a fairly well-sotted expatriate rushed out from the darkened doorway, lured by the sound. We met and I stepped inside to enjoy a Liter of Gallo Lager and talk a bit of Goober, Gomer, and Floyd the Barber. I met other folks because I whistled that theme as well.



#OTD (October 3, 1960) ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ debuted on CBS. 8 months earlier Griffith intro-ed Andy Taylor in an episode of ‘The Danny Thomas Show.’ Griffith was straight man to Mayberry, a mythos based ‘to a degree’ on his hometown of Mt. Airy, NC. The show closed at #1 in ‘68. Premier of an American Classic, The Andy Griffith Show

Ever wonder where Helen Crump and Miss Ellie went to college? Howard Sprague?
Click to expand...
The only bad thing I have to say about the Andy Griffith show is, . . ., because I grew up in Eastern NC, the only notion I had of what Western NC looked like was from the Andy Griffith show. So I grew up thinking Western NC looked like Southern California. The first time I actually saw Western NC was when I was 19 years old. Turns out Western NC looks nothing like Southern California.
 
Ddseddse said:
Are you trying to say that a bowl of tomato flavored cheese with a single lasagna noodle sticking out of it is somehow "not good"?
Click to expand...
GF, to be fair, was always convinced that the Rat’s lasagna was made by scraping the cheese of of half eaten pizzas and just layering it in a bowl. Did that stop me from eating it? No, no it did not.
 
Anyone remember a bar called the game room? Early 80s. In the shopping center down on the corner of hillsborough and airport
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top