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#82695 - 01/12/07 12:20 PM What happened to "Mayberry"?
Boacrow Offline
journeyman

Registered: 08/18/06
Posts: 85
I was watching Andy Griffith last night and it made me think back to my own childhood. I grew up in a town that seems like a twin to Mayberry. It was small, predominantly poor and relied heavily on farming to keep it alive. At the time cotton fields were everywhere although human labor had long since gave way to combines, cropdusters and other assorted mchinery. We had a cotton gin which burned down when I was young and I still remember seeing the glow on the horizon as it burned for days.
The town was segregated although not a trace of racism was evident to me as a youngster. My grandfather would deal mostly with the poorer population and he loved them all genuinely. He ran accounts in a small notebook for most of the people in town and they always paid him, always. The women that would come to shop at my granddads produce stand would usually have several children in tow (they would take on the role as daycare for the entire family so they might have several people's children with them at any given time) and more often than not, he would tell me to load extra in their bags while he gave each of the kids an apple or whatever treat was in season.

There was a cafe around the corner where we would go eat breakfast sometimes and there were always the same people sitting at the same tables talking about the same things day in and day out. All of them drinking coffee and all of them listening to all of the conversations that were going on. They would occassionally yell a reply to someone across the room.

Nobody locked their doors back then. There were no gangs. There was very little crime and it was usually nothing more than someone getting drunk and becoming just a bit too loud for their neighbors.

I remember these times fondly and oh how I wish I was back in that little cafe listening to the old timers telling their stories of the one that got away. That town is gone now, replaced by a thriving metropolis with a casino and numerous resturaunts, crime, neoghbors who don't know each other, and traffic jams.

It saddens me to see a little town "grow up". My little town is long gone now, and the experiences I had will be treasured memories forever, but the generation now will never know what it's like to live in a town that is untouched by hatred, where everyone is family regardless of name or race. Sure there were feuds, and there were fights, but usually once the battle was over, people went back to getting along. Regardless of a persons wealth, they were all happy and everyone for the most part was willing to do whatever they could to help out everyone else.

I wish we could go back to those towns when it was so much simpler to live. Life moved at a slower pace and it was easy to get lost in the stories of the old timers. I appologize for the length of this post but I just felt a little nostalgic and felt the need to write it down.

I miss "Mayberry".

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#82697 - 01/12/07 04:56 PM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
cedfire Offline
Addict

Registered: 07/10/03
Posts: 659
Loc: Orygun
I never lived in Mayberry, but as a kid spent some time in smaller towns. It was only a matter of time before the yuppies discovered each area, swarmed in, and built their huge homes with five car garages.

Driven out were the mom and pop stores, replaced by Super Wal-Marts and other strip malls.

It's interesting to see how places change over time. I recently drove through a small city I lived in as a kid and it looked completely different to me. Not to mention an extra 10,000 people added in.

So much for progress! <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

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#82698 - 01/12/07 05:09 PM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
MartinFocazio Offline

Pooh-Bah

Registered: 01/21/03
Posts: 2203
Loc: Bucks County PA
Here's what happened to Mayberry.

Three things converged on small town America in the 1970's - the beginning of the global economy, the end of American manufacturing and the wholesale shift of the population to urban centers.

The mythical Mayberry of long ago was no paradise, though. As Secretary of the local fire company, which was founded in 1947, I have the records of the day-to-day activities of the community over the years, and yes, it was a time of less crime and more community, but it was also a time when you could die from a simple cut, where, if you happened to be Black, you could not sit and have a cup of coffee in the same place as the whites, a time where a Woman could not legally own property if she was married, and a time when a car, a refrigerator or a television was a major luxury.

The Mayberry of long ago was a filtered, idealized version of the past, and while many of the things we long for in small-town America are fondly remembered, it's all to easy to forget that what we have today is a fantasy for the days of Mayberry.

Today, I can fly to Chicago and come back again the same day for $179.00. Today, I can call my grandmother in Michigan and talk all day long and not pay a cent for the call beyond my $24 a month calling plan. Today, I can drive a car and expect it to last to over 200,000 miles. Today I can call a simple 3 digit phone number while in my car and gain access to emergency services. I have this fantastic thing called "the internet" that gives me access to many more people with whom I share values and ideals (like this forum) than I could ever find in Mayberry.

Mayberry wasn't real, any more than the television show "Friends" was real, any more than a "reality tv" program is real. Shows like that represent the common practice of idealization of a memory or a representation of a desired state.

But you can make your own Mayberry if you want. One thing that we've found in our community is that people can and will join in community activities, and that the Mayberry ethic is alive and well, it's just not in the Mayberry context. You have to work to invent the circumstances that allow people to express the trust and commitment that I feel is intrinsic to most of humanity, and there's no easy way to do it.

There are countless organizations out there that are in need of people to help, to participate, to make a difference, but they can only reach out just so far, you have to make the effort yourself. As Woody Allen once said "99% of success is just showing up" and that's true of community organizations in general.

If you don't know your neighbors, is it because you're waiting for them to say hello first? If you want to have a cup of coffee with someone, did you ask them?

Let me leave with a true story of how you can get some Mayberry ethic back into your life.

Last winter, there was a major wind storm in our area and a huge tree came crashing down across the road. It took down many poles, knocked out our electric and phone service and was a huge mess of wires and trees and so forth. There were many trees down all over, so the repair crews didn't arrive until quite a few hours later - maybe 3AM. Well, I thought that working in high winds, in freezing cold was horrible, so I made up a few pots of coffee, got some snacks together, put them in the dining room, and went out to the crews and told them to come in for hot drinks and to use the bathroom as needed. Several of them took me up on the offer, and after about 6 hours, the power was on and all was well.
Fast forward to the fall of 2006, and I'm down at the firehouse and I'm trying to deal with a stuck pulley on the flag pole so I can change out both the flag and the rope. It's a 30' pole, I'm there alone, so I can't tip it, so I'm there tugging, flapping and generally having a bad time of it. A utility truck drives by, and what do you know, it's one of the guys from the crew that fixed the wires by my house. I don't recognize him, but he says, "Hey, it's that guy who let us use his bathroom!" and I say hello, and he asks what I'm up to, and they quick set up the bucket truck, swap out the pulley on the pole for me, and go on their way - probably violating who knows how many rules and regulations. But it's the small stuff like that that makes a community. It's banking good deeds, which invariably come back one way or another. I'm not a religious person, but I do like the idea of Karma - the net good (and bad) you do is cumulative.

I've rambled on here a while, but I hope you get the message - the Mayberry ideal is there, you just have to look for it a little bit, and live it a lot.



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#82699 - 01/12/07 05:50 PM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
Chris Kavanaugh Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 02/09/01
Posts: 3824
"To every thing there is a season" A famous horsetrainer came home from working on a bad movie about a horsetrainer. His idyllic cattleranch was all torn up by access roads and test pits. He had sold the mineral rights. He wrote in a horse publication how " he didn't hold with kooks" but he felt like having them treesitters come save his place. I had to ask him why kooks saving redwood forests he didn't care about should feel obligated to help him out? I listed the roster of current 'horsewhisperers' And suggested they'd look grand in their roper boots and quarterhorse crease hats locked down on a bulldozer. He didn't think that was very funny. "My people carved this ranch out of wilderness with their bar hands." I replied " your people took this land behind the US Cavalry from people who were allready here, grazing buffalo." Each season brings something, and takes something away. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

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#82701 - 01/12/07 07:49 PM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
Dragonscript Offline
Newbie

Registered: 12/19/06
Posts: 39
I have drove through mayberry several times, it looks no diffrent than most places.
_________________________
Learn to swim.
-Tool

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#82702 - 01/13/07 12:25 AM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
picard120 Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 07/10/05
Posts: 763
Mayberry lost its innocence when walmart moved into small towns. The town now is no longer crime free.

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#82704 - 01/13/07 02:46 AM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
91gdub Offline
Member

Registered: 11/12/06
Posts: 172
Loc: South Jersey (the 51st state)
While I didn't grow up in Mayberry I had a very similar experience.
I grew up in a small colonial town in Delaware during the 50's. My father owned the local "mom & pop" drugstore on the main street. The town had many local small businesses on that main street and it seemd that anything we needed could be purchased there.
Everyone knew everyone else. People watched out for each other. If a kid fell off of a bike and skinned his/her knee a stay-at-home would come out and bandage it up and wipe away any tears. If a neighbor was in need everyone pitched in and helped.
Crime was almost non-existant, no-one locked their doors at night and cars were outside with doors unlocked and many times windows down.
I moved away when I went to colleage and have not lived there since. My parents lived there until the both passed away. After my father died my sister, brother and I could not even find a key to the front door of my parents house. Seems there probably never was one.
Sadly those times are long gone. I miss them
_________________________
Bill Houston

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#82705 - 01/13/07 04:19 AM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
picard120 Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 07/10/05
Posts: 763
how can you find employment in such small town? everyone likes to live in crime free area but those places don't have jobs.

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#82707 - 01/13/07 04:56 AM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
OldBaldGuy Offline
Geezer

Registered: 09/30/01
Posts: 5695
Loc: Former AFB in CA, recouping fr...
I grew up in the Central California version of Mayberry. Oil town, everyone worked for the big oil company, or the big electric energy company (think cromium 6). Fun was hunting for jackrabbits, pheasants, dove, and quail in the hills and flatland, and drinking Coors from an eightpack. Now the hills have been sold to a Japanse oil company and fenced off, the flats are all under crops, thanks to the CA aquaduct, two state prisons have been built in the city, with a third only ten miles away, and the only inhabitants are the few retired oil workers stuck there, a few prison guards, the families of the inmates, and a jillion illegal migrant farm workers...
_________________________
OBG

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#82708 - 01/13/07 05:15 AM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
ironraven Offline
Cranky Geek
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 09/08/05
Posts: 4642
Loc: Vermont
The city people moved in, and then whined becuase they didn't have thier botiques, BMW and Cooper dealerships (and roads ok for thier little toy cars), fancy resturants, rap music, drugs and cheep floozies when they got bored with eachother. SO they imported them, and the stupidity that goes with it. Then the started whining that it wasn't what they wanted, and it was getting built up, so once they outnumbered us (or could spend more on lawyers and lobbiests), they made it so that only those who live right in town can get cell phone coverage or broadband, or even phone lines newer than the Nixon administration. They also amde it neigh on impossible for there to be any kind of industrial or commercial growth, so the kids of the town are forced to leave so they can help thier parents pay for the increased property tax as they outlanders artificially drive up property values.

ANd when we go back, it isn't home any more. The ponds are dry, becuase what once was the water table for say a hundred houses and three farms is now feeding a thousand houses and no farms. The game has been chased away becuase they don't understand that they can't let thier dogs run free. And after they shut down the few real jobs in the area, things get worse becuase everyone who isn't on welfare is either one of the paper pushing outsiders or has moved away. So pretty soon, no one comes back, while Ozzie and Harriet raise thier crack smoking, gangsta wannabies on MTV and reality TV, while forcing thier little artificial world view on everyone else who has to actually work for a living.

No, I'm not bitter or anything. Can't you tell?
_________________________
-IronRaven

When a man dare not speak without malice for fear of giving insult, that is when truth starts to die. Truth is the truest freedom.

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