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#82709 - 01/14/07 02:36 AM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
samhain Offline
Addict

Registered: 11/30/05
Posts: 598
Loc: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Forgive me for being a curmugeon, but...

Mayberry never existed.

I was intially raised in a small southern town and was moved away kicking and screaming at an early age and had opportunities to visit frequently.

This gave me a chance to grow up seeing a contrast between what I remembered growing up there and what I was seeing in the outside world.

I grew up watching the show as well and was struck by the absence of anyone who wasn't white.

The Mayberry town drunk was a friendly lovable coot, very unlike the drunks I knew growing up.

Not everybody liked or trusted everybody like in Mayberry. The Lutherans didn't like the Catholics, and a Jew was nowhere to be found in my little south louisiana town. They were there no doubt, just laying low out of fear of the good ole boys in the white hoods and pickup trucks.

There were thefts of property (I heard suspiscions that some of my older cousins were the culprits, but never proved)

I can guarentee you there were rapes and child molestors it was just no one talked about it.

And if you had brown skin, you weren't even considered a member of the human race and could be treated like a dog with impunity by "good respectable Christian folk".

To quote Billy Joel;
" the good ole days weren't
Always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems"


_________________________
peace,
samhain autumnwood

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#82710 - 01/14/07 01:03 PM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
Boacrow Offline
journeyman

Registered: 08/18/06
Posts: 85
I know what you mean about some of that. I lived on the outskirts of Wetumpka in a place called Lake Region. At the time the little community I was in was mostly summer homes and retired people and it was all white. The downtown area where I spent a lot of my youth at my grandads produce stand was mostly black though and I really loved that place.

One story that seems to be typical of that area of town was when a man came and asked my grandfather for a loan to help him buy a house. My grandad helped him with a loan and apparently the conditions were that he should pay the money back when he could. My gandad passed away several years later but his wife came to their house after he passed and gave all the money back. My grandmother was surprised to see this woman standing their crying and trying to hand her all this money. Apparently my gandmother didn't know about the money but that's the way my grandad operated. If he helped someone out, noone ever knew it because he didn't want anyone else to know they needed help. I guess you could call it pride by proxy. Even though my grandad never saw the money again, those people made sure that they paid back every cent of it, and my grandad never said a word about it.

Back then, at least in my hometown, you couldn't tell the rich from the poor. They all dressed the same, they drove beaters instead of fancy new cars, One of them I knew, never owned a new pair of shoes. He always bought his wardrobe at yard sales. If he had a car I never saw it but I saw him walking around downtown all the time. Life moved at a slower pace back then. Most of the people were farmers and they always had time to stop and talk with you no matter what color you were or how old you were. They were always pulling me up telling me stories about the way things were when they were younger.

One interesting thing to note, I noticed there were two groups of people in my hometown. The really really poor, and the farmers. They both told similar stories of their younger days but if they ever started the story with "One time we was fishing" you could pretty much bet that that was going to be the only true statement in the story. After that it was fanciful tales of catching fish of biblical proportions. I loved those stories the best.

Most of them are gone now and I think it's a sadder world because of the loss. They would hang out and talk with anybody that would lend them an ear. They didn't seem to care who you were, they just knew they liked you instantly and they all treated me like family whether they knew me or not.

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#82711 - 01/14/07 01:06 PM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
widget Offline
Addict

Registered: 07/06/03
Posts: 550
In 1998 I moved from the 6th largest city in the nation to a small town on the Tennesse River. My first impression was this was Mayberry. After more careful observation, I saw that most of the small family owned stores were empty and closed, Super Walmart was where everyone shopped now. Some of the major employers were clothing factories where locals made Tommy H, and other well known clothes and collected minimum wage or slightly more. You could buy a decent house for $40K, if you could get the credit somewhere but the job/pay/credit thing seldom balanced out in your favor.
The local people all pretty much knew each other and their personal business, who they were related to and so on. My girlfriend grew up there and filled me in on all the local culture. Seems most people were on some sort of prescription meds which were handed out in bulk and paid for by Tenncare with little oversite into quantities issued or required. The ones that couldn't get pills bought them from those with excess at a stiff premium.
The brother in law of this girl collected unemployment and worked 10 hour days making roads for $12 an hour. The unemployment check helped pay the wife's drug bills and keep the 4 kids in clothes from wallyworld.
A job paying anything close to a liveable wage was nearly impossible to find and in 2000 most of the local manufacturing went overseas or south due to NAFTA. This has lead to more crime, drugs and poverty.
The one thing that hssn't changed much in decades is that kids that go to church all day Sunday every week, all discover reproduction at a very early age and practice every chance they get. Many do not finish high school due to having children to care for.
I had left there in 1999 for practical reasons but stay in touch and find out the latest from time to time. There are some sad stories that I will not relate here. I do miss the town with 3 traffic lights and no traffic and I miss the people I know. What I miss most is the dream that there are places like Mayberry. The dream is gone for me, I have come to the conclusion that the world has changed some for the better and some not.
_________________________
No, I am not Bear Grylls, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night and Bear was there too!

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#82712 - 01/14/07 04:15 PM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
OldBaldGuy Offline
Geezer

Registered: 09/30/01
Posts: 5695
Loc: Former AFB in CA, recouping fr...
"...Mayberry never existed..."

Oh man, next you're gonna tell me that Hooterville didn't exist either, aren't you???
_________________________
OBG

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#82713 - 01/14/07 04:40 PM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
samhain Offline
Addict

Registered: 11/30/05
Posts: 598
Loc: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Men like your grandfather still exist.

Just look in the mirror.

His actions and honor color how you see the world and yourself.

The disdain many of us hold for "the way things are today" is because we all see the same thing at 5:00 pm every day.

Most of our view of the world as a whole is through the lense of the tv camera.

I had a tv reporter tell me once that people doing good for others isn't news because it's the norm.

Men like your grandfather don't make the news. They don't want to

Saying "please, and thank you", letting other people pull in front of you in traffic, holding the door for ladies and the elderly, catching the elevator door for a perfect stranger, or paying for an eldery person's lunch at McDonalds is expected behavior.

This is evidenced by the fact that it is too numerous to make the news.

Violence, etc are news because they are the abnormal. The jerk cutting off others in traffic like his NASCAR hero makes us angry because he isn't obeying the norm.

He stands out because he is abnormal.

After further thought, I have to revise my earlier statement.

Mayberry does exist not as a geographical or chronalogical event so much as an ideal (not a perfect one mind you), but an ideal to strive for.

To paraphrase Ghandi, "be the (Mayberry) you want to see in the world".

Sounds like your grandfather gave you a gift of an example to live by.
_________________________
peace,
samhain autumnwood

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#82714 - 01/14/07 06:00 PM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
wildman800 Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 11/09/06
Posts: 2846
Loc: La-USA
Amen Brother!! I too grew up in such a small town & we have lost much of what made life great to be living, with this higher pace of life that we are stuck in.
_________________________
QMC, USCG (Ret)
The best luck is what you make yourself!

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#82715 - 01/15/07 02:47 AM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
Boacrow Offline
journeyman

Registered: 08/18/06
Posts: 85
I guess everyone here has ther own Mayberry and I believe that's what makes us long for the great outdoors. I guess that's about as simple a life as one could hope for. Living off the land isn't easy and neither is survivng a catastrophe, even if it's for a short time, but it does have the unique effect of bringing people together. When the power goes out taking the TV and video games with it, the family actually comes together and spends quality time with each other. I remember as a kid when the power would go out, the parents would gather all us young 'uns together and tell stories or make up games that we could play in the dark. Back then we didn't have video games and we only watched TV for about an hour a day so we didn't miss it. I might even start turning out all the lights once a week or so so my family can have some fun like that.

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#82716 - 01/15/07 09:34 PM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
bassnbear Offline
newbie

Registered: 08/25/06
Posts: 44
Loc: Southeast US
Hi Izzy - I'm one of those 500 with a Silver Springs address only because it's the closest Post Office. I drive in to Ocala every day for work (about 20 minutes or so on a good day). I still can't imagine living any closer to "civilization."
_________________________
bassnbear

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#82718 - 01/17/07 12:20 AM Re: What happened to "Mayberry"?
ki4buc Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 11/10/03
Posts: 710
Loc: Augusta, GA
In the last 25 years we have improved industrial processes to a point that only a handful of people on the planet hold the knowledge on how to recreate our modern civilization. Machines making machines. It's a chicken before the egg kind of thing.

I will be taking a blacksmithing course this spring, and I encourage everyone to try and pick up, and maybe even master, these "old" skills to pass down to the next generation. Even today putting together your own electronic circuit is becoming more difficult.

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#82720 - 01/17/07 07:01 PM Re: "Old Skills"
Angel Offline
Member

Registered: 06/17/06
Posts: 192
I have all of the Foxfire books. I spent several years in the same region as the people in the books and I got a lot of my survival skills first hand from the people they interviewed. If you haven't read the Foxfire series, I highly reccomend checking them out. They aren't just informative but they are entertaining too.

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