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.