It is easy to read those words and intuitively sense that you are on the threshold of watching a rerun of “The Walton’s” take place inside your head. Maybe it’s the concept of “kiss your family and friends goodbye” that crafts a positive slant on the direction the story should take. Normally, a good-bye kiss carries some level of endearment. Otherwise, a handshake would suffice.
I’ve got friends in my peer group that still watch re-runs of Gunsmoke and Andy Griffith. I guess I should say they fall into the early retirement group and are seemingly making up for lost time. Of course, with my age group, one has to pose the question: “Is it really reruns or does the viewer perceive it is an incredible new series?” Trust me, it could go either way. Who’s really to say? Of course, what does it really matter? Either way the experience is a source of enjoyment.
I can’t imagine exchanging the value of an hour to watch a couple of reruns of Gunsmoke or Andy Griffith, but to each their own. However, I might be tempted to catch a previous episode or two of the Walton’s.
Of course, the Walton’s didn’t hit the screen until after I was grown and married, but the storyline resonates with things of value and a sense of familial closeness. It really is true, unless a story is everybody’s story it doesn’t last. People are hungry to get in touch with their own stories.
For starters, I cannot really envision what it must have been like for families to live through the Great Depression. I think it is one of those “you have to walk a mile in my shoes” to have a real glimpse of the experience.
The Walton’s was a true-to-life storyline from the experiences of Earl Hamner, Jr. who was both the writer and producer of the series. It was his story that he was sharing. Like Buechner expressed: “You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”
Earl was the oldest of eight children. Interestingly, he and my dad were born the same year – 1923. My dad’s life was also shaped in part by the Great Depression. The impact it made on him stayed with him all of his days. Obviously, the same was true for Earl.
Earl’s family lived on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His dad was a miner until the Great Depression hit. After losing his job, he found work in a town 30-miles away. Because of the distance, Earl, Sr. stayed in a boarding house throughout the week and came home on weekends. His transportation was by bus with a couple of intermittent stops along the way. Once he arrived at the bus’s last stop, he had six more miles to walk before he was home. His taking that walk on a snowy Christmas Eve in 1933 was the storyline of “The Homecoming”, Earl Jr.’s novel that became a Christmas special and the pilot for the Walton’s in 1971.
I have several friends on Facebook that regularly allow my stories to remind them of their stories. Truthfully, they write better stories than I do and I’m always honored and humbled when they contribute their memories to coincide with mine. Every single person we meet represents a collection of stories. The stories are fairly eclectic. No one thing exclusively filled a person’s treasure chest of memories.
Yesterday, I mentioned my mother’s encouragement for us to read throughout the summer. My younger (and perhaps wiser) brother added: “Mother required us to read an hour everyday in the summer. Before long, we were reading much more than that. I loved those We Were There books (e.g. We Were There at Lexington and Concord). I loved the classics. I loved Little Women (in fact, I loved them more than the classics)…Am I in trouble? After class, again?
For some of us, our memories take us back to a Norman Rockwell picturesque kind of environment. We carry those familial American-life-kinds-of-moments around in our hearts, minds and stomachs. It generally fills us with delight to take pause and remember the past and the contributions others have made to our lives.
But what about the people who don’t have those same kind of gregarious, love-filled moments that fills a treasure chest of memories from far away and long ago? What if the memories are more of a horror-story that they thought they’d never survive? Does Buchner’s comment include them? Think of it: “…you can put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in our heart, your mind and stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you?”
A friend at church once confided in me that the only time she ever felt safe during childhood was when she was at school. The on-going emotional, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her step-father made her life a living hell. His abusive taunts and death threats finally were the catalyst for her to leave home as an adolescent and travel 2,000 miles across the country to find solace in a setting where he didn’t have access.
To her credit, today she is one of the most gifted and talented people I’ve ever known. Somewhere along the way, the concept of a loving heavenly father was enough to make a difference and fill her with a sense of peace and calm.
Let me close with another of Buchner’s thoughts. It, too, is equally profound:
“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”
All My Best!
Don