And just like you, I’ve had my share of personal “moments.” When my friend Steve Kerrigan lost his battle with cancer, when my mom suddenly passed on last year and when my parents’ sheltie, Leo, went to join her on Leap Day.
It’s funny how we associate our moments with sadness, when there are so many more wonderful things to remember, like my wedding day (well, maybe not that), my nephews’ births, Jason Aldean coming to town (yeah, not that either), but you get what I’m saying.
I had another “moment” earlier this month, when I found out Andy Griffith died at the age of 86. Tears instantly streamed down my face. No, I’ve never met Andy Griffith, but I know him. I know him as sure as I know Barney, Aunt Bea, Opie and Gomer.
Of course, Griffith will forever be best known as the beloved Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry. When my sister and I were growing up, we wanted to live there, everybody did. “The Andy Griffith Show” represented all that was good. Even when the bad guys showed up, Sheriff Taylor’s downhome good sense always saved the day. He took care of Otis, the town drunk. He made sure Deputy Fife didn’t carry a loaded weapon.
He dispensed fatherly advice to Opie in a way that was firm, but loving, and no matter how bad Aunt Bea’s pickles turned out, he found something good to say about them.
Whether he was strumming his guitar after supper in Mayberry, winning cases as the wise lawyer in his later years on “Matlock,” “Waiting on a Woman” in Brad Paisley’s music video or shilling for Ritz (“goooood cracker”), that winning smile and crinkle in his eye made my heart swell.
I didn’t grow up in Mayberry; I grew up in South Charleston. We didn’t have a Goober’s Filling Station, but we had Dave Sprague’s 76 station. We didn’t have Walker’s Pharmacy, we had the Polar Bar. There was no Emmett the TV fix-it man, we had Jim Carr. And Sheriff Andy Taylor was not my dad, JR Wilson is.
But to my sister and me, the two were interchangeable. So much so, my youngest nephew is named Andrew Taylor Wilson. Firm but loving, honest but playful.
Griffith often said in interviews that the character of Sheriff Taylor was all the “best parts” of him.
I’m sad Andy’s gone. I lost my TV dad. But I’m thankful I still have the real one, safe and sound, even if he can’t play guitar.
Contact Nancy Wilson, a morning-radio personality at WHKO-FM (K99.1), by email through k99online.com.
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