Do You Have a Mayberry?
One of my favorite “Andy Griffith” episodes was about a stranger, Ed Sawyer, who showed up in town, creating quite a stir.
Though no one could remember him, he seemed to know everyone: their names, their families, even intimate details about their lives and preferences. The good people of Mayberry quickly went from flummoxed to suspicious to scared. Barney Fife opined that he was another Toyko Rose.
Eventually Ed explains to Andy that he met someone from Mayberry while in the Army. Since Ed was really from nowhere in particular, he was drawn to the small town he heard his buddy describe. After leaving the army, he began subscribing to the local newspaper. And eventually this little North Carolina spot became his home town, even though he’d never been there.
I have a few towns like that: Lake Wobegon, Gilead, and Harmony. Maybe even the Shire (a region rather than a town). I’ve been to Marilyn Robinson’s Gilead, and I feel at home there. And if I got lost in rural Minnesota and wound up meeting Carl Krebsbach or Clarence Bunson — well, they might be alarmed by how much I know about them. (Hey, fictional characters can be alarmed, too.)
We all need a home. A place to return to.
In addition to these fictional ones, I have Neosho. The place of my birth, my upbringing, my first attempts at dating, my underwhelming career as a safety and a miler, and my graduation. As I think of it now, I can hear a kind baritone voice:
Well, look who’s coming through that door,
I think we’ve met somewhere before,
Hello, Love . . . .
Anyone else have a Mayberry — real or imagined?
Can Hogwarts count as a town?
Oh, I have several Mayberrys – real and imagined. Mitford, North Carolina; Avonlea, Prince Edward Island; Crosswicks, a farmhouse in Connecticut (setting of Madeleine L’Engle’s memoirs); and yes, Hogwarts.
In the real world, I have Midland – where I spent my childhood, reading and riding bikes and winning spelling bees and playing the flute. Where I fell in and out of love a few times, learned to drive, and graduated. And although I didn’t grow up there, I have Neosho too – because I have family there, and no matter how long it’s been, when I pull up in front of Mimi’s farmhouse, I am home.
Avonlea is my most real home. I’ve lived there for nearly all my life, though I’ve never (yet) touched the soil of PEI.
Perhaps as a fanatic lover of Jeff Berryman’s LEAVING RUIN I should have mentioned that I feel pretty much at home in Ruin, TX, as well!
Growing up in Monroe, LA, (no, NOT West Monroe, thank you for asking…
) where my parents still live and one set of grandparents and one grandfather are buried while my 99 and 1/2 year old grandmother is living in assisted living telling them how to run the place, those are my people. I can’t throw a rock there without finding someone who went to school with my parents or myself or whomever. I love that little town and those people. And half of them are Gomer and the other half are Barney.
I, too, have Mitford, North Carolina, and Harmony. Oh, stars, those folks in Harmony. Don’t you know them all??? But Avonlea? Sorry to disappoint, but this female doesn’t do Avonlea.
Have a Mayberry? Heck, Mike, I still live in Mayberry. Does it say something about me — and Neosho — that I immediately recognized the setting for the photo of your grandfather and the newspaper carriers? They were at the corner of Hickory and Wood, right across the street from the post office. Happy holidays, old friend.
Oh, my. Kim. So very good to hear from you. And yes, yes — you ARE still in Mayberry. (Do you recognize the Katie above as Doug Noah’s daughter?)
Hope you’re well!
I must fail at female. Aside from the whole preaching thing, I also have no place in my heart of Mayberrys for Avonlea. I could be persuaded, however, to live in the Lower Tadfield of Pratchett’s and Gaiman’s impeccable “Good Omens.” I’ll just take my place in Jasmine Cottage.
I have to echo Lake Woebegon and Mitford. While I love Anne of Green Gables and all the books in that series, the village of Avonlea doesn’t bring up strong images.
Oh, how did I forget, Guernsey!!
Yep — Royal Oak, Michigan. Endless summers, riding bikes, playing baseball, camping out in the backyard, walking to and from school regardless of the weather… I get back there every chance I get.
Fictional: Andrew Greeley’s Chicago and Frank Herberts planet Dune. Real life: Oneida, TN, where I spent most of my childhood years and keep up with the local newspaper and old friends via Facebook.
In Real Life? After attending 35 elementary schools, 1 middle school and 5 high schools to obtain the basic K-12 education, where is my Mayberry? I suppose it would be the car we traveled in from planting a church to planting another church.
I would suppose that land in fiction would be Camelot. Always loved the story, Also, to some extent the amazing lands of Bunyon and his blue Ox, then I’d swing to England with Mary Poppins.
See what you end up with when dad is a church planter and preacher. LOL
My hometown of Lufkin will always be home to me, nestled in the hills and pine trees of East Texas. I also get that home feeling amongst the canyons and mesas of Los Alamos, NM. But I do have a heart-home in Avonlea and Glen St. Mary, and also with any and all of Alcott’s heroines. They are where I go when I have a yearning for my own hometown. In marked contrast to all those rural and quiet places, I found myself quite at home in London this summer. I tend to prefer small towns, but I think I could live there.
Walden, VT. We have our characters… All of them good people with lots of history and stories to tell.
Lovington, Illinois – population 1300. I lived there until I was almost twelve. We lived two houses away from the best aunt and uncle a child could hope for. My 3 siblings and I, along with our 3 neighbor/cousins did everything together – snow forts in the winter, kick the can and flashlight tag on summer nights, baseball and kickball through the day. Girls were even allowed to join in the football games but we couldn’t be tackled.
My great grandmother was on our way home from school so we always stopped in for a snack of homemade sugar cookies and ice water out of tin cups that would get so cold our teeth would hurt.
When I was in second grade I won a school spelling bee, beating my 8th grade opponents. To this day, when we return for any community function, there are people who say “You’re that little girl who won the spelling bee….” And they begin to tell my husband the story AGAIN.
Even after moving away, and now as an adult, I’ve always thought of Lovington as home, but I’ve often called in Mayberry.
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