Let’s all go to Mayberry
By Margery McCurdy Plummer
Christmas has come and gone, and I said I wouldn’t panic. I didn’t, until I got into the Christmas card part which was early in the season, and the same was true with stocking stuffing.

I made a big early plunge into both, then just backed off a little to enjoy the coming season which was by then almost upon us.

I’m not so traditional that I can’t use a small artificial tree, but five stockings just have to hang by the chimney with care every year. From grandchildren to adult children, those stockings hang year after year.

Stuffing stockings would seem to be about the easiest tradition of the holiday season. However, finding age appropriate small gifts for such a wide range of ages can certainly be a challenge.

We enjoyed a relatively quiet and wonderfully peaceful Christmas with family, food, friends and love in a world where often there seems to be no peace. Hopefully the world will look brighter next year. We need Peace on Earth.

Meantime, just for a short while, I would like to drift into an Andy Griffith world in the town of Mayberry where there are few problems that can’t be solved, and everyone knows each other’s name.

When I want to have a really good laugh and relax for a time, I turn to the channel that often shows back to back reruns of Andy Griffith episodes. It’s amazing how many of them I’ve seen, but they seldom grow old.

Maybe my favorite episode is one where Aunt Bea, all dressed up, goes downtown to do some shopping and encounters a man on the street selling some elixer, purported to do all kinds of things for one’s health and well being. Not only was Aunt Bea struck by the prospect of feeling healthier, she was somewhat drawn to the suave medicine merchant.

She just can’t resist. Fumbling nervously in her purse for some money, she then takes the bottle, and in her confusion, invites the medicine man to her home for dinner.

Later in the day, we see Andy coming in the door to their home, shocked at seeing Aunt Bea literally rocking the piano as she plays some very lively music and singing with several friends of whom she has shared her medicine which is maybe laced with a bit of alcohol. Some of the ladies’ hats were tilted out of place, and they were surely behaving out of character.

Of course, Andy catches on to what has probably happened, and he is doubly sure when the medicine man later knocks at the door, ready to have a home cooked dinner. As is usually the case in Mayberry, Sheriff Andy Taylor sees that justice is done, and everything turns out right. Andy, Helen, his girlfriend, Barney and his girlfriend, Thelma Lou, Opie, Aunt Bea and all the gang are always sure to keep you laughing, and laughter is often the best medicine.