Month: September 2018

 

I have mentioned David Browning, known as the Mayberry Deputy, a couple of times in previous posts. He figures more prominently into another post that will be made a week from today beginning the recounting of my experiences at Mayberry Days in 2016, so it is an opportune time to tell a bit more about him.

David does an incredible impersonation of Don Knotts, so much so that Don used David as an opening act for shows on more than one occasion.  Don himself said, “David Browning is a bridge between The Andy Griffith Show and today.” Ever respectful of the original, David does not refer to himself as a Barney Fife impersonator or tribute artist but instead as “The Mayberry Deputy.”

Over the years, David has worked with most of the surviving cast members in various shows at Mayberry events across the country including on the stage of the Grand Ole’ Opry. But fans also love him for his “crowd work” at Mayberry events.

For many years, David appeared at Mayberry Days and other Mayberry gatherings, entertaining festival attendees and acting as the emcee for shows. A large part of David’s success is not just his resemblance to the character of Barney Fife and his remarkable ability to evoke the character but is his ability to improvise. He wanders through crowds of Mayberry fans writing “tickets” and posing for pictures with such ease that I don’t think it is overstating it to say that he is beloved by the Mayberry community.

Mayberry Days this coming weekend will be the first in 27 years without David in attendance. His schedule at Mayberry Days always involved a grueling pace. He has not retired, though. David continues to perform as The Mayberry Deputy at other select Mayberry events as well as corporate appearances. He also appears in character in regional and national commercials for companies such as Bath Fitters.

I can tell you from personal experience that David is as nice a fellow as they come. He is undoubtedly a large factor in the continuing growth of the Mayberry spirit.

Our first publication, the 2019 Mayberry Day-by-Day Flip Book Calendar, is in stock and ready to ship beginning this coming week! To order online and have them signed (and personalized, if desired), visit https://mayberrybooks.com/product/2019-mayberry-day-by-day-flip-book-calendar/ to use our secure shopping cart to pay by credit card or check. If you are attending Mayberry Days, there are a couple of other signing options as discussed below.

If you have read the other sections of our website or followed us on Facebook, you know that the daily desk calendar is not a random collection of 365 facts about the classic television series The Andy Griffith Show, but a collection of facts tied to each particular day.

As a bit of behind-the-scenes background, I did consider doing the calendar as the type where one rips off a page each day but there were a few issues with that approach. First and foremost, all of those calendars are printed in China. They have mammoth presses there that do nothing but print that type of calendar. I was determined that the publication be printed in the United States. Second, I believe many people who use the type of daily calendar with pages you remove toss the daily sheet of paper into the trash and hence into a landfill instead of recycling them. Add to that the oil-based plastic stand that those calendars are mounted on that likely end up in the trash and it just didn’t seem like the right approach for a Mayberry project.

After a lot of investigation and discussion with a printing company I have dealt with previously, the idea of a ring-bound calendar with an attached easel became the clear solution. Of course, the pages can still be removed, but I titled the publication a “flip book calendar” to call attention to the idea that at the end of the year, the easel can be removed and recycled resulting in a book that can be kept as a fun reference even though the dates will not match the following calendar year.

I will release a 2020 version, of course, with all new facts.

As stated, the calendar is available signed and personalized if desired from our website. If you are in the Mount Airy area at any point, the calendar will be for sale beginning the weekend of Mayberry Days at all the major stores in town Including Wally’s Service Station and the Andy Griffith Museum. But if you are going to be in town during Mayberry Days 2018, I will be signing (and personalizing, if desired) calendars sold by the Surry Arts Council at the Thursday night banquet and at Wally’s Service Station on Main Street Saturday after the parade from 11:30 to 1:30. Wally’s is going to be hopping the entire weekend, with bluegrass bands and food truck service in addition to their usual great shop and squad car tours. Please come by and say hello!

By the way, if you find yourself at the Mayberry Trading Post in the community of Mayberry in Meadows of Dan, Virginia right off the Blue Ridge Parkway near Mount Airy, they will have the calendars available for sale, too. If you are a Mayberry fan, you owe it to yourself to drive up there at some point. Be sure to tell Peggy I sent you!

The calendar will be available at these Mount Airy shops:

Wally’s Service Station
The Andy Griffith Museum
Mayberry on Main
Bear Creek Gifts and Fudge Factory
Mayberry Market & Souvenirs

Who doesn’t like a good donut? Lots of cities have their own sources of which they are justifiably proud. Cincinnati has Holtman’s Donuts. Portland, Oregon has Voodoo Doughnuts. And California’s Silicon Valley has Psycho Donuts.

Psycho Donuts actually has several locations. The one I visited was in San José. They are currently closed for relocation. Hopefully, they will re-open in as cool a location as they were before. At the time, Psycho was located in the lobby of a movie theater. I think this is a brilliant idea. It’s another fun option for patrons going in to see a movie which has to be a good customer base. Yet they were open even when the movie theater was not. In fact, I stopped there for breakfast two days in a row—but my wife and youngest daughter only went once.

I think I may deserve the blame for them not returning with me the second morning. The shop had a large selection of donuts, some more “normal” than others. My wife and daughter got fairly standard donuts. I got the “Dead Elvis.” I will let their menu description speak for itself:

“You’ll think you died on the throne! Cream-filled, bananas, bacon, peanut butter and jelly. It’s a hunka hunka donut love!”

I will add the cream-filled base donut was quite large. My wife and daughter were—well, a bit mortified with my choice. The next day I went back and had some wine-flavored donuts. They went to Starbucks.

People behind the counter are dressed like mental hospital staff. They have a large though revolving selection of unusual donuts and even have vegan donuts. The store’s tagline is “Psycho Donuts, Crazy Good!”

If you are ever in the area, I would recommend the local chain. Like a lot of places I enjoy especially when I travel, this place is a treat. But if you ate like this all the time, you’d be dead in a week.

After meeting Barbara Eden and getting a photo and autograph, Rob and I got in line to meet Clint Howard. Clint played Leon, the ever-silent and ever-generous young boy in Mayberry dressed as a cowboy and offering people a bite of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Upon meeting Clint, one would not be out of line to quote Floyd the barber: “What a nice man!” Clint was so friendly and willing to chat. When another person approached the table, I said I knew he had other people he needed to see, but he at least gave the impression he would have been happy to chat for much longer. He is a real class act.

That afternoon, we saw the always-wonderful event called “Professor Brower’s Lecture.” Neal Brower, the man who inspired this thread of posts to explain how he came to be recently wearing a t-shirt from our Facebook chapter, is the author of the excellent book Mayberry 101. Each year he does a presentation on Saturday afternoon that is really the highlight of Mayberry Days for me. He typically has a cast member on stage with him whom he interviews while offering his own insights and showing clips from the show.  In 2015, he had Clint Howard and Bruce Bilson. Bruce was the Assistant Director on the first two seasons of The Andy Griffith Show. I could have watched Neal’s presentation all day.

After the lecture, the annual meeting of The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club was held, presided over by founder Jim Clark who, by the way, is also the co-author of several fine books about The Andy Griffith Show. Chapter reports are always welcome but at that point, our chapter was an internet group that really only posted on occasion so I did not offer a report.

Rob and I next explored another subject we both enjoy: Bourbon whiskey. Living near the great Commonwealth of Kentucky, Rob and I have explored most of the distilleries on the Bourbon Trail together. We have also visited a number of craft distilleries and when I learned there was one right in Mount Airy called Mayberry Spirits, I knew we had to check it out.

The master distiller at Mayberry Spirits takes a shortcut used by some to try to capture the same flavor profile as aged bourbon without actually aging the spirits in a barrel. Instead, charred wood chips are added to the new whiskey and shaken once a day with the theory that you can get the equivalent of a two-year bourbon in just a few weeks. I am not a fan of this method or the resulting bourbon but it was still a fun tour. The distiller led the overview himself and gave an entertaining explanation of his operation, complete with humorous outfits. While I was not blown away by their bourbon, they do make an excellent vanilla if you are a cook. You can buy their products in their gift shop without taking the tour.

We closed out our visit with the evening performance of Colonel Tim’s Talent Show, a revue featuring the tribute artists and many of the celebrities along with the top contestants in the festival talent show and various musical performances.

On the way home the next day, I introduced Rob to Hillbilly Hot Dogs. He loved it as much as I thought he would. Another of their dogs I enjoy is named in honor of the supernatural being said to appear periodically in  Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The Mothman Dog is a deep-fried weenie with Hillbilly Hot Dogs’ own hot dog sauce, 1000-Island dressing, two onion rings, and tomatoes—or as the menu says, maters.

I also mentioned previously the Homewrecker, a mammoth 15-inch-long deep-fried one pound weenie piled high with peppers, onions, nacho cheese, spicy chili sauce, jalapeños, mustard, slaw, tomatoes, lettuce, and shredded cheese. They actually have an even bigger version called the Widowmaker which is a 30-inch, 2-pound weenie with 4 pounds of the same toppings. Needless to say, we didn’t have that one either.

 

 

I don’t know whether it was the fun-filled time we had in Mount Airy or the lure of a return trip to Hillbilly Hot Dogs, but before we were home, Rob had already decided he wanted to come back to Mayberry Days the following year.

 

 

 

 

 

In Mount Airy, the “must-go-to” restaurant is Snappy Lunch, thanks to it actually being mentioned in an early episode of The Andy Griffith Show. It is fun to try other restaurant options, especially less crowded ones, during Mayberry Days. Speedy Chef was a local spot my friend Rob and I visited for lunch on Saturday during Mayberry Days in 2015.

If you looking for a fancy meal, Speedy Chef will disappoint. But the restaurant has its charms. They are one of the many spots in town that serve a local menu item called by the non-descriptive term “ground-steak sandwiches.” These sandwiches are a remnant of a period when hard economic times led to meat being “stretched” by the addition of a filler. In essence, “ground-steak” is ground beef that has been boiled instead of fried. After it is cooked and drained, flour and water are added to thicken the meat. The sandwiches are traditionally served on a toasted bun and topped with coleslaw, tomato, chopped onion, and mayo. There are other examples in the U.S. of using fillers to make meat go further, such as what are called “slug burgers” in some parts of the country and foods similar to sausage like scrapple in many rural areas along the coast in the South. Cincinnati has a similar delicacy called goetta.

The meat in a ground-steak sandwich is looser, almost like a sloppy joe without any tomato sauce or ketchup yet with a bit more consistency than a sloppy joe. I have since had the ground steak sandwiches in a couple of different restaurants in Mount Airy. Speedy Chef’s version was fine though I had one at another restaurant in town to which I would give the edge. I will add that a number of reviews I have read about Speedy Chef complain about the service, but we did not have a negative experience at all. The kids who worked there were certainly friendly enough.

Speedy Chef is located on Main Street but not in the downtown area. The building may be a bit run down but one does not see this type of restaurant often anymore. It definitely has a 1950s vibe about it. It is fun to support such businesses and I certainly don’t regret having my first ground steak sandwich there.

I am excited to share some news about the upcoming Mayberry Days. I will be doing two signing sessions during the festival for the new 2019 Mayberry Day-by-Day calendar I have written and that will be released by Liberty Grove Press shortly.

For those who may not know, Mayberry Days is the annual festival held the last full weekend of September in Andy Griffith’s hometown of Mount Airy, North Carolina. Traditionally, the festival kicked off with a golf tournament on Thursday followed by a banquet at the local country club. This was followed by multiple events on Friday and Saturday, including a parade Saturday morning, concerts, lectures, autograph sessions, trivia contests, and much more. But as the festival’s popularity has grown, there are actually some events starting as early as Monday. The festival is attended by tens of thousands of fans with the biggest crowd there on Saturday.

The first signing session will be to the limited crowd of the 300 people who attend the banquet Thursday evening. While I will be there to sign (and personalize, if desired) the calendars, they will be sold by the Surry Arts Council who organizes Mayberry Days every year. Only 300 people can attend the banquet, but for those who do attend, buying a calendar is a wonderful way to support a great organization who does so much to host the premier Mayberry event of the year.

On Saturday morning, Liberty Grove Press will be represented in the parade. The parade will end with the Darling’s truck carrying a bluegrass band dressed as the Darling boys. Follow the truck down to Wally’s Service Station where the squad car tours I mentioned a couple of posts ago are based. I will be doing a calendar signing at Wally’s after the parade from 11:30 to 1:30. Wally’s has a full weekend of activities at their location at 625 S. Main Street. On Friday and Saturday, there will be bluegrass bands performing, a food truck selling burgers and hot dogs, and a vendor selling ice cream. And, of course, the signing of our new calendar on Saturday. The place will be hopping all weekend, so if you are going to be at Mayberry Days, come on down even if you can not make it while I am there on Saturday!

If you can’t make it to Mayberry Days this year, you owe it to yourself to attend someday, at least once. There are other Mayberry events that are worthy of attending, but Mayberry Days is a must.

On Saturday morning of Mayberry Days 2015, my buddy Rob and I got up early to go out to breakfast. While Rob was finishing getting ready, I went downstairs to the Hampton Inn’s free breakfast to grab a cup of cranapple juice. While there, I saw a man with long gray hair flowing around the bald top of his head. He looked vaguely familiar though I did not pay close attention to him. After going back to the room, Rob and I then left but still didn’t totally beat the rush for breakfast at Snappy Lunch. After a short wait, we were seated. Breakfast was delicious and so cheap it was ridiculous so long as you are okay with eating from styrofoam plates. The restaurant is the favorite type for Rob. Any restaurant where the servers call him “Sugar” or “Hon” adds a few points in the plus column automatically.

 

The parade was fun with a mix of celebrities in attendance, tribute artists, and other entertaining features. I nearly said “Duh!” aloud when I saw the guy in the parade whom I had seen earlier at breakfast. It was Clint Howard.

As soon as the parade was over, we hightailed it to the Andy Griffith Museum to stand in a long line to see Clint and another special guest, Barbara Eden. Just to be clear, the wonderful Betty Lynn (Thelma Lou), Maggie Peterson Mancuso (Charlene Darling), and Rodney Dillard (the guitar-playing Darling boy) were all there as well, but I had previously met all of them and gotten their autographs,

The celebrities in attendance generally charge $10 or so for an autographed 8 X 10 and are always happy to pose for a photo. So when people learned Barbara Eden was charging $40 or thereabouts, many were not thrilled. (I don’t recall exactly what she charged, but I do remember there were different prices depending on what she was signing. I think the fee also increased if you also wanted to take a photograph with her.) I certainly understand people’s negative reactions, though I personally felt no one was being forced to get an autograph. I do think the organizers made a mistake in not publicizing her variation from the normal fees at Mayberry Days, but that was not Barbara’s fault. I may come at it from a different position, as I know what many celebrities charge for an autograph and photo at comic conventions (comicons). Some charge in excess of $100, so I felt if people were willing to pay her $40, good for her. But I don’t think all of my fellow Mayberry fans shared my opinion.

As would be the same for many men my age, certainly a prominent thought was: I’m going to meet the star of I Dream of Jeannie! Barbara was at Mayberry Days because she did appear in a single, classic episode of The Andy Griffith Show, as the incredibly attractive temporary manicurist at Floyd’s Barber Shop. I had read her autobiography which mentioned that her current marriage had been held at a church in San Francisco modeled after Notre Dame in Paris. I had previously visited the church when my youngest daughter worked at the stunning Fairmont Hotel right across the street. And as luck would have it, Barbara’s wedding reception was held at the Fairmont, so I had a point of conversation at the ready.

Barbara was gracious, as all the celebrities I have ever met at Mayberry Days have been. She became quite interested when I shared that my daughter worked at the Fairmont. Barbara related how much she loved the hotel. The people with Barbara handling her merchandise were surprised, asking me, “She works at the Fairmont in San Francisco?” Presumably, they didn’t expect anyone at Mayberry Days to actually know about the Fairmont.

There were only two problems I had with getting Barbara’s autograph. First, the picture I have posted was the best of three. In the other two, my excited expression even more clearly says, “Can you believe I am standing by Jeannie? I am standing beside Jeanie with my hand on her back!” that the pictures are more humorous than anything I want to share.

And the second issue? After all those years as a young man of watching her frolic around in her Jeannie costume, it was disturbing to fully realize…Barbara Eden is two years older than my mom.

After such a delightful lunch at Hickie’s, we made good time and arrived in Mount Airy in time for something I had planned without informing my friend, Rob. We went straight to Wally’s and took a squad car tour.

The tours leave from a building that evokes Wally’s filling station from The Andy Griffith Show. Tours are given in reproductions of the Mayberry squad car. If you are ever in Mount Airy, treat yourself and take a tour. It was definitely worth every penny. Our driver was quite knowledgeable about both the town and its occasional reflection in the show. He quickly realized what a fan I was and did not hold back on sharing as much information as one could take in during the tour.

Wally’s is also home to a shop known for having good and fair prices on Mayberry products of which they stock a nice selection. They also stock a lot of old-time candy many of us would remember from our childhoods.

If all that were not enough, another building next door houses a reproduction of the Mayberry Courthouse, complete with the sheriff’s desk and jail cell. There is also a reproduction of the Darling cabin along with the Darling’s truck. It was a perfect way to introduce Rob to “Mayberry” on our first evening.

We arrived near the end of Wally’s operating hours. After the tour, we asked to see the owner who we learned was Mike Cockerham. We told him how much we had enjoyed the tour and what a great job the driver had done for us. As we started to leave, I thought it would be worthwhile to ask for a restaurant recommendation as Snappy Lunch was about the extent of where I had been in town. Mike recommended a ribs restaurant called 13 Bones. He started to give us directions and then said we could just follow him since he was going there anyway. We responded we would do him one better and treat him to dinner. And that’s how we found ourselves passengers with the owner of Wally’s squad car tours as he drove to 13 Bones and called to tell his wife he would be home later than usual because he had met two nice fellas from Cincinnati who were taking him out to dinner.

 

That night at the Fairmont Inn, we discovered there were more notable people than us staying there.

 

 

We spent Friday exploring and also saw several shows. One was Karen Knotts’ one-woman show “Tied Up in Knotts” about her life and her father, Don Knotts.

We also saw a moving tribute to James Best, Mayberry’s own guitar playing wizard Jim Lindsey, called “Remember Me with Laughter.” Jimmie had passed away earlier that year and the tribute was hosted by his widow, Dorothy Best, and the Mayberry Deputy, David Browning.

We closed the evening with a truly entertaining concert by the VW Boys. This bluegrass band’s show was as much a comedy show as a concert and even included a bit of humorous magic. Before the concert began, a number of tribute artists were patrolling the aisles. When Andelina (the grown-up daughter of Charlene and Dud, played to perfection by Christie McLendon) saw me, she paraphrased Charlene Darling’s line and said, “My! You’re big as a tree.” Rob took a photo of us and has enjoyed teasing me about it to this day.

We had already had a full trip but we had another full day ahead.