Griffith gone, but Mayberry lives on

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July 7, 2012

Griffith gone, but Mayberry lives on

Anonymous Daily Star The Daily Star Sat Sep 22, 2012, 03:37 PM EDT

Andy Griffith is gone ... but the best part of Mayberry is still here.

And when we say "here," we mean exactly that.

Griffith, who died Tuesday at age 86, enjoyed early acclaim with his comic albums before starring in "No Time for Sergeants" and "A Face in the Crowd."

He enjoyed further critical success in the 1980s series "Matlock." But Griffith's legacy shall always be playing sheriff Andy Taylor on "The Andy Griffith Show" in his mythical rural town of Mayberry.

In many ways, Oneonta is Mayberry. So is Laurens _ and New Berlin and Portlandville and Downsville and many other towns and villages in our area.

A lot of us moved here from the cities and suburbs, seeking a slower-paced lifestyle where we didn't spend half our lives in traffic jams or riding an elevator in a high-rise building.

Oh, just about all of us use computers, and our college-educated neighbors aren't the rubes we saw Andy Taylor have to deal with each week, but make no mistake about it, this, in many ways, is still Mayberry.

Like Floyd's barbershop, some folks in Oneonta will stop by Mac's when they don't need a haircut, just to pass the time of day. Around here, getting a cone at the Dairy Queen on a summer night can be something special. Feeding the geese at the Fly Creek Cider Mill still makes children laugh.

Perhaps that's the reason those of us who grew up here as well as many who moved here are so resistant to change, whether it be wind farms or fracking or heavy industry. We're trying to cling to something precious, something that once taken away shall never return.

Yes, Mayberry.

We yearn for a place where crime can be controlled by Andy Taylor and his shaky deputy, Barney Fife, who has to keep the lone bullet for his gun in his shirt pocket.

But life's realities encroach upon our lives, with heroin arrests and other crimes becoming daily events, necessitating a well-trained and professional police force.

Mayberry had a town drunk, Otis Campbell, who would accommodatingly check himself into the jail. Here, substance abuse of all kinds is a growing problem, just as it is everywhere else.

We long for a place where we don't have to worry about our children, and Opie and Aunt Bee and Goober and Gomer will greet us with a smile.

"The backbone of our show was love," Griffith once said. "There's something about Mayberry and Mayberry folk that never leaves you."

We'll miss Andy Griffith, but amid all the perils of modern life, it's comforting to know that at least something of Mayberry lives on right here.