Andy Griffith

Yesterday, my CNN news alert service sent one of its little emails to my inbox.  Frequently, these are just sports scores or a political updates about which I care very little.  When I glanced at the screen and saw the synopsis, though, I clicked on through to read again the brief message.  Andy Griffith had died.

The sadness that I felt was profound.  I have never met him; he is not of my family. We are decidedly of different generations. The only experience with him that I have ever had is, in some cases, over forty years old and in black and white.  Despite these facts, the news that he was gone was an oddly personal thing.

I grew up, like everybody else, probably, watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.  I didn't always like it.  It was "just on" at my grandparents' houses when I visited, and I didn't pay much attention then.  Some of it was funny, and I didn't dislike it; I was merely indifferent.

As I have grown older, though, I have come to recognize something in it that is absent in so many other shows, a genuine sense of love and respect for people that is at its foundation.  The situations Barney and the others get themselves into are the same sort of real-life absurdities that we all encounter or participate in, for the most part.  Pride gets in the way.  A mistake is made and the consequences emerge.  A misunderstanding arises because of a lack of patience or forethought. What is striking is the incredible gentleness everyone on the show has for everyone else.  Instead of telling Aunt Bea that her pickles are "kerosene," something that would crush her, Barney and Andy dump them and get her to try again.  Instead of assuming his son is lying despite a story he can't understand, Andy chooses to support Opie and check things out before issuing a punishment that he believes to be the right action at the time.  Even with Otis, a repeat offender and the town drunk, kindness and love are used.  He's treated like what he is, somebody who can't really help himself, instead of like a "criminal."

Too often, TV goes for the laugh at the cost of the character.  Even in the later shows Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz did together, most specifically We Love Lucy, the comedy is laced with cruelty. All the characters in that show have devolved from what they were in the original I Love Lucy and become adversaries who spend all their time coming up with a clever insult or acidic ridicule for their wives, their husbands, their friends.  It might be humorous for a couple of episodes, but for my tastes, the more Chaucer-esque method of showing people for what they are, with affection but also with absolute truth, and recognizing that we are all ridiculous at certain moments is more entertaining than the constant put-downs and sniping that is more commonly found. After all, don't we all want this, this most basic recognition of our human dignity? 

Maybe this is why the loss of Andy Griffith yesterday was something that was so personal.  While I have no way to know how much of his public persona was actually based on his real life, from what I understand, the philosophies reflected in the show were his own.  Even if they weren't, he made a show that valued hope instead of hatefulness, and he should be honored for that.  Would that there were more who were willing to follow that legacy on and off the TV.