After the Saturday morning parade, we had a bit of time to kill before our next event which was Professor Brower’s Lecture, so I suggested we look over the items available at the annual silent auction. Neal Brower is the author of the excellent book Mayberry 101 and does an annual presentation at Mayberry Days (the aforementioned “lecture”). I was pleasantly surprised to see Neal checking out the auction items as well. We had never met, but I approached him and asked to be sure he was Neal. I told him how much I always enjoyed his presentations and cast member interviews and that his presentation was the highlight of the weekend for me. He thanked me, his eyes drifted down to our chapter logo on my t-shirt, and he asked, “Are you Randy Turner?”
I was completely blown away. I confirmed I was and he told me how much he enjoyed my daily history posts in our Facebook group. I told him I didn’t think he was in our group and he told me he was not. I then said I didn’t think he was on my email list and he again said he was not, He explained he just made it a point to check the post each day. He was complimentary about my writing style and told me how much he enjoyed them. Coming from Neal , I took that as a true compliment.
As we chatted, he asked about the t-shirts and I offered to have one made for him. He said he would love one and I later had it made and mailed it to him. And that—finally!—is how Neal Brower came to be wearing one of our chapter t-shirts when I saw his presentation at The Andy Griffith Museum this past summer during the Mayberry Meet-Up.
After Neal’s annual presentations (he interviewed Clint Howard that year), the annual meeting of The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watcher’s Club (TAGSRWC) is always held. During chapter reports at the 2017 gathering, I announced for the first time that I planned to release a book in 2018 and planned to release additional books later. I had not told my friend Rob about this. In fact, my wife was the only person who knew of my plans.
That afternoon, I was in the store Mayberry on Main and saw Ken Junkin, the tribute artist who plays Otis at Mayberry events. I told him how much I appreciated all he does for the Mayberry community and started to introduce myself. I only had the word “I’m” out of my mouth when he interrupted me and said he knew who I was. Ken and Allan Newsome often travel together to Mayberry events and I had been discussed at some point. Ken graciously invited me to a gathering held after the Colonel Tim’s Talent Time show and said bringing my friend Rob along was fine. That evening, we attended the Colonel Tim’s show, a revue including former cast members in attendance, tribute artists, and musical acts.
Afterward, we went to the gathering Ken had invited us to attend. While I had been working with Allan for close to 10 months at that point and had seen him one time quite briefly in July (a story I will eventually share), I had never had the opportunity to really talk with him at any length. Getting to chat for a bit with Allan and his wife, Jan, was a great way to wrap up Mayberry Days. The only sad point to the evening was his confirmation that David Browning, the Mayberry Deputy, had decided he was going to limit his appearances and would not be participating in Mayberry Days in the future.
On the way home the next day, of course, we made our annual visit to Hillbilly Hot Dogs.
This blog post completes my recounting of previous Mayberry Days before I was able to attend as an author this year. I will share stories of Mayberry Days 2018 soon.
As a postscript, I should add that Allan, whom you will remember I had given a couple of slices of the pungent salt-rising bread to at Mayberry Days, later shared that fact on his podcast. As I recall, he said his wife wouldn’t taste it. He did and liked it, but he described the smell by suggesting if a listener wanted to know what it was like, to put their nose in an old tennis shoe. I didn’t think it was that strong, but Allan being exposed to the “bottled up” odor after it had been in the ziplock bag I had left it in may have added to his olfactory nightmare.