It's July already? How'd it get here so fast, and where's the year gotten to, with its' being half gone and all? Well, since I haven't posted anything in about three or four weeks, here's what happened: Oklahoma City lost in Game 5 of the 2012 NBA Finals to Miami, I never got around to writing a post for that. My dad had surgery a few weeks ago, so been taking care of him, the Internet was out, and nothing much worth blogging about presented itself.
The Fourth of July was Wednesday, in case anybody didn't notice. It was a typical holiday for us - in other words, just another day, with no special things planned or anything. My little brothers set off fireworks, the annual army man battle where there's loads of multcolored smoke balls, melted plastic, and firecracker shells scattered all over the sidewalk and driveway. I poked my head out long enough to see how strong the smoke smelled; it was fireworks, all right. I then ducked back into my safe hideyhole and tried to ignore all sights and smells of flames existing for no useful purpose.
So it was a good time to think about how this country got started, what it took for us to have this country we live in today. The Founding Fathers, they were pretty well-off, the famous ones everyone remembers. Yet they believed in the cause of liberty so strongly that they were willing to risk not only their monetary fortunes, but also the friendly ties/perks they might have had with the English overlords, and whatever comforts and safeties those provided. They went so far as to risk their lives for what they thought was right. And many of them had families to support, and this decision would have impacted them, as well.
Would we have the same courage, the unshakable strength and endurance to do the same? I don't think we would, much as we might say so, or wish so. As society has moved farther and farther away from the Christian roots and values we started with, something of that courage was lost, somehow. Not that large a percentage of people want to grow up to be soldiers(though I can think of a handful of people I know who chose that path off the top of my head), because it's dangerous. We might die or be seriously injured. No matter how tame the service time is, you will be forever changed. And is this country really worth defending, anyway? Rarely do you see people who believe it is, and who'll do what they can to try to keep us on the right track.
Paul Revere went galloping through, warning us of the British attack on the way. George Washington led the army, through unimaginable stress and difficulties. Lafayette was aiding a country he didn't even belong to; how much firmer a belief can you get than that? Ben Franklin used his pen, mouth, wit and brains to lay the framework for the Revolution, and a ton of opinionated men fought and quarreled and haggled their way into setting aside most of their personal issues with each other to agree to take an enormous plunge into the unknown; Breaking off from England and declaring independence as a new sovereign nation. Once they finally agreed to that, somebody had to write out the announcement, and had to choose just the right phrasing and make certain points and truths stand out. And he had to turn this document in for editing in two days. No pressure or anything. The man chosen for this endeavor was a man by the name of Thomas Jefferson. So he began writing. And thinking, and wrestling with his thoughts, trying to make the words untangle themselves into straight lines of clear thought. There was a war on, of course, so imports of British products were scarce and expensive. Jefferson used what he had to write with; and set to work using the backside of a spare sheet of wallpaper he had laying around the house. (Funny thing about Jefferson, he was a man of many talents; one of which was home construction. Always working on something or other.) He kept at it well into the middle of the night, and what my grandpa(sixteen generations removed, on my mom's side) wrote became one of the most famous documents in the history of mankind: The Declaration of Independence.
Fast forward about a hundred and fifty years, to a small town called Mount Airy, right in the heart of North Carolina, where a little boy named Andrew was born to the Griffiths. Andy, he fell in love with music(girls weren't for him, he never knew how to act around 'em), and once he got done with his schooling became a high school music teacher. Well, he was one of those fellas that ya call a quick wit, and people thought he was pretty good at makin' jokes and such, and by golly, he should go up and try to see what happened by using those! So off he goes to New York as a comedian, and he's doing pretty well at it. He has a monologue called "What It Was, Was Football" that gets featured on the Ed Sullivan Show, and that kickstarts his career in the entertainment industry.
So after five or six years of being a pretty successful comedian, who can sing, too, one of these Broadway plays asks him to try out for a part. Well, he does, he auditions for the part, and what do you know, but he gets it. That play does pretty well, and he gets a part in another, and another, including one called No Time For Seargeants That was turned into a movie by those people out in Hollywood, and they see if he can be in the movie, too, since the play went so well. He goes to California, stars in the picture, and it does pretty well, leading to another film, A Face in the Crowd. That does pretty well, too, and so by and by it comes that CBS is trying to pitch a new show, a comedy, and they want Andy Griffith to star in it. They shoot the pilot, which was in reality an episode of another show they had, starring a guy named Danny Thomas, and it goes okay, some people liked it. This other comedian, named Don Knotts, he calls up Andy and says "Don't you need a deputy on that new show you're gonna be in?" Andy and the producer, Sheldon Leonard, look at each other a minute. "Well, yeah...I guess we could use one." "Great! Can I be him?" Well, they figure it up that Andy is a single father, as well as the town sheriff and justice of the peace, his wife died years ago, and he has a little boy, around six years old. They cast a little redhead named Ronny Howard as Andy's son Opie, and well, someone needs to look after these characters, they cain't just be tromping along all by themselves! People'd start to talk, y'see, and they'd get to wonderin' why this, and why that, and who's looking after these folks? Ain't there no women in this town? They find a lady named Francis Bavier, a classically trained actress, huge on Broadway thirty years ago, and slightly cantankerous and hard to deal with, but she fit the role well, and so became Andy's aunt and housekeeper. The show that followed, of course, was The Andy Griffith Show; for most of the nine-season run viewers across America grew to love Andy's taking care of the scrapes that Barney or Opie get into, listen in on the party line with Aunt Bee and Clara gossiping, and groan in anticipation of the mayhem from the mountain folk on their infrequent visits to town. And Mayberry itself was just so likable!
After "TAGS" went off the air, and several moderately successful at best TV movies and advertising spots later, Andy became the star of a new CBS series, as a friendly and shrewd lawyer named Matlock. That show also did well, and he retired from acting due to burnout and old age catching up to him, leaving him time to (finally) focus on music. He did several albums, and Brad Paisley asked him to help with a song he'd written, called "Waitin' On A Woman." While another fantastic song from Brad, the video made for it was even better.
Andy Griffith was a great actor, a hilarious storyteller, and a good man. He passed away in his Mount Airy home Tuesday morning at the age of eighty-six, he will be greatly missed. While sad, we know that we all have to go sometime, and this includes famous people we've come to love like family, and his work will continue to be cherished and loved by untold counts of people. A fine example of a life well spent, much like the Founding Fathers hoped their descendants would live.
No comments:
Post a Comment