Saturday morning Rob, Steve, Marty, and I, all wearing our new chapter t-shirts, went for breakfast at Snappy Lunch. We knew it would be the only opportunity to eat there that trip. When disappointment was expressed to our server that we would be missing out on the world-famous pork chop sandwich since it was breakfast, she told us the cook would still make them for us but that it would take a bit longer. Not a traditional breakfast, but all four of us had the tasty pork chop sandwich.
The parade was a blast, as always. Afterward, even though I already had Betty Lynn’s autograph, I waited in line to meet her again and had her autograph a photo for another friend of mine who is a fan but couldn’t attend.
Professor Brower’s Lecture followed and was as entertaining as always in spite of the fact that Clint Howard, who was supposed to attend again, had to cancel at the last minute because of a film role. Instead, Clint arranged for Neal to interview Rance Howard, Clint and Ron’s father, by phone and Neal shared details of the conversation with the audience.
At the annual meeting of The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club, I gave a report for The Gomer and Goober Pyle Comic Book Literary Guild for the first time. I shared that I had, on behalf of our group, been privileged to present Dorothy Best with her Duchess of Hazard certificate on Thursday.
I also announced that I was going to attempt to post something on our Facebook group page literally every day of 2017 and not just random facts. That would have been too easy. No, I was going to post facts related to each specific day. (This project eventually led to our new Mayberry calendar.) I will admit, I had a rough outline of a great many of the days already so I believed I could pull it off but the posts were certainly not all written in advance. Still, I asked anyone interested to check it out and wish me luck. I checked that morning, and at that point, we had 86 people in our Facebook group.
Seeing my old friend, Marty, again after so long and gaining a new friend in Steve made the 2016 trip to Mayberry Days an especially wonderful trip.
On the way back home on Sunday, Rob and I naturally introduced Steve to Hillbilly Hot Dogs. I have previously mentioned they have hot dogs with enough toppings to weigh multiple pounds called the Homewrecker and the Widowmaker. While they are known for their hot dogs, they also have burgers. Their biggest burgers are named after trailer types, so they have a Single Wide, a Double Wide, and even a Triple Wide. The latter is a 30-pound beef burger that is cooked in an enormous skillet. It is not 30 pounds of individual beef patties piled on a giant bun but is literally a single 30-pound meat patty. It sells for $150. Then again, it feeds up to 50.
The hamburgers I have seen there do look good, but since I only go once a year, it is hard for me to rationalize not getting a couple of hot dogs. After all, it is called Hillbilly Hot Dogs.
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