After attending the 2010 Mayberry days festival, early the next year, my friend Barry asked if I knew how fan club chapters were formed. I told him I did indeed and had thought about doing just that for years, to which Barry responded, “Let’s make it happen!” We soon sent in the paperwork to form an official chapter of The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club. Inspired by that mouthful of a name of the national organization (often just abbreviated TAGSRWC), we gave our new chapter a mouthful of a name as well. We called it The Gomer and Goober Pyle Comic Book Literary Guild. I think most people have figured out we are a group dedicated to celebrating The Andy Griffith Show, but I still occasionally hear from those who say Gomer and Goober are funny but they really like all the characters from the show or from those who think the group is only about comic books that were released about the shows.
We learned via email on February 26, 2011, that we had been approved as an official chapter and received our charter on March 2.
Barry soon established our Facebook Group and a mirror Page which was joined by a select few family and friends. For the next six years, we posted sporadically and enjoyed it for what it was. Like most Facebook groups dedicated to The Andy Griffith Show, we used photos from the show as our banner photos.
I mentioned Mayberry Days to my good friend, Rob, and was pleasantly surprised that he thought it would be a fun getaway. The surprise was really more that, while Rob enjoyed the show, he did so as a quite casual fan. He certainly had seen a number of episodes, but much of his viewing had been years ago. So really, he was going not just to learn more about Mayberry, but as an act of friendship to me. I jumped on his offer and in 2015, I attended again, this time with Rob.
I started this thread to ostensibly explain how author Neal Brower came to be wearing one of our chapter t-shirts at his lecture during the recent Mayberry Meet Up and how Liberty Grove Press came to be. I am getting there, but the 2015 Mayberry Days did not include chapter t-shirts for Rob and I. But what the trip to Mount Airy did include was a stop at another distinctive restaurant.