“Remembering Andy Griffith” Presentation

On April 6 of this year, I was privileged to provide a presentation on The Andy Griffith Show at the beautiful Miami Township Branch of the Clermont County Library near Cincinnati. It was a wonderful experience that I look forward to doing again.

I have done public speaking since seventh grade and competed in public speaking competitions in college as part of an activity called Individual Events or Forensics. So the actual speaking part was just the norm for me. I did have two real hurdles, though.

First, the library asked me to do a one-hour presentation on the show followed by a 30-minute question and answer session. How do you discuss as broad a topic as The Andy Griffith Show in an hour?

As I worked through how to handle the request, I finally resolved to start with a brief “need to know” introduction (as we called it in Forensics), then discussed the four core characters (Andy, Opie, Barney, and Aunt Bee) followed by a discussion of selected secondary characters and a reflection on why the show remains so popular. As I said during the presentation, keeping it to an hour was a challenge. Just before I showed the opening credits, I told the audience my problem was I could easily spend 15 minutes talking about the short opening credits alone.

The second hurdle was that I had never done a PowerPoint-style presentation in my life. As it turns out, thanks to the magic of Google, I soon learned that capturing video clips and putting such a presentation together was not all that steep of a learning curve.

I was curious as to how many people would actually show up to such a presentation. I knew a friend from Lexington planned to attend as well as my son-in-law and his parents who were in town for a trip to the Bourbon Trail we went on the previous day. I also knew a couple of people would be there on the library staff. As it turned out, there were around 35 to 40 people who attended. A few I knew (though I did not know they would be attending) but most I did not.

I have to mention two people in particular. Terry Varvel is the tribute artist who performs so wonderfully as Barney Fife at Mayberry Days and Mayberry in the Midwest. I saw a comment he made on a Facebook post about the upcoming event just a day or two before it was scheduled. He said he and his wife planned to attend. This was a real surprise to me as Terry lives west of Indianapolis. That is easily doable as a day trip but it is still quite a long drive each way. I was blown away that he planned to come at all, but I couldn’t resist reaching out through a private message and asking if he planned to come in uniform. He immediately responded that he would if I wanted him to. Needless to say, I wanted him to!

I first met Wayson Cooper at last year’s Mayberry in the Midwest. Wayson is a real fan of the show and he and I talked well into the evening after sitting by one another at dinner the first night of the meet-up. Since then, Wayson has restored an early 60s Ford into a Mayberry Squad Car reproduction. Even though the library event was on the east side of Cincinnati, Wayson lives more than an hour east of there. I learned through a comment he made on a Facebook post that he planned to attend and would be bringing his squad car! The library staff arranged for a special parking spot out front where Wayson parked his squad car.

A local man whom one of the staff at the library knew also brought a squad car reproduction to park out front. So when attendees arrived, they walked in by two squad cars and were greeted by Barney Fife inside. Pretty darn cool way to do my first presentation on The Andy Griffith Show that I am sure I will never top.

I say “first” because I will be doing more events, details of which I will eventually announce. I am currently scheduled to speak at a private event not open to the public at a senior citizen’s retirement community this fall. There are also events open to the public coming up. I will be doing a new presentation at the Clermont County Library this fall and will also be presenting in Danville, Indiana where Mayberry in the Midwest is held. I will also be a guest at chapters of The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club in Dover, Ohio and in Danville. And in September of 2020, I am honored to be a guest speaker at the Centennial Celebration of the Carnegie Library in Marceline, Missouri, the town where Walt Disney spent his formative childhood years!