Good Night no more

Earl Hamner, Jr passed away just a few weeks ago. Now, some of you may know who he was, others probably know the characters he created. Most notably was John Boy Walton, which was also modeled after himself. The other family members and neighbors were made up of family and friends from his past.

Earl grew up in the mountains of Virginia during the depression. Like many families of that time, they had to survive off the land, make ends meet, and keep faith alive. The rest would take care of itself.

He left the mountains to do what he did best; tell stories. The stories of the Walton's resonated with people. They could relate, perhaps because they were part of a large family, or they knew hard times. But, some I suspect enjoyed the romance of a loving family that survived life intact. Not everyone did.

I remember many of the episodes. You knew right away that it was coming on when you heard the first few seconds of the theme song. You could see the house as the episode opened up and you always knew how it was going to end. Those two things always remained the same, while everything else in the middle would make you laugh till you cried or cry till you laughed.

Our grandparents, on dad's side, lived in Scottsville, VA, during part of the time The Walton's was on the air. Scottsville was just outside of Charlottesville, so we kinda felt like we had a connection to the Walton Family. Especially when we visited our grandparents. Granddaddy was a Methodist minister, so they moved often. But, I remember this house very well. It would have been closer to the Baldwin Sister's house than the farmhouse the Walton's lived in. It wasn't as grand and I doubt there was any recipe tucked in a secret room, but it was a brick house. It had a central foyer and stairway. To the right was the dining room. Behind that was the bright kitchen, with windows over the sink and a half bath under the stairs. To the left was the living room, which took up the left side of the house, and off of that was a huge screened-in porch. All the bedrooms were upstairs, but I don't really remember those. I guess we spent most of our time there like we did most of our time together; playing, talking, and eating. I remember a few occasions when we were there along with our Uncle Jim & Aunt Joan and their two kids. My Uncle David was just five years older than my oldest brother, so he was still at home then too. When we were all there, it was a huge family with three generations.

I remember Sunday dinner at their house always meant Grandmaw's roast beef, gravy, mashed potatoes, slices of white bread and deviled eggs were going to be on the table. She would be up before any of us on Sunday morning, and before church, she had everything prepped and the roast in the oven. It seemed like we would only be back for 10 minutes and it would all be set. We all ate together too, no matter how big a group we had. They would add a kid’s table to the end of the big table, but we were there together. Grandaddy would get out the ice cream bucket on summer days too and we could take turns helping to crank it. It felt like that took hours before we would have anything to celebrate, and the celebration was that we finally had ice cream!

Every morning at their house meant waking up to the smell of bacon, toast, and scrambled eggs. Grandmaw would be in the kitchen in her robe, with her hair wrapped. Granddaddy always sat at the head of the table and he ruled the meal. He would get mad at us if we used our knife to butter our toast and then stick it in the jelly too. Grandmaw was running around getting everything to the table. Mom would help her, but she would always have it ready to go. We all sat down together for meals at their house and we ate from sun up till right before bed, then we would have a snack. A sandwich and Ginger Ale. It was pure heaven. And, it was something we only did when we were there. I'm sure we had our own version of "Good Night John Boy". It probably ended with mom telling us we better stop and to go to sleep!

Earl Hamner, Jr. was a great story teller. I was affected by what he wrote and the characters that he created. I honestly didn't know that he was still living at the age of 92 in California, but I kind of miss him. It may be the nostalgia for it all, it may be because I had just started to write this blog when I found out. Whatever the reason, I will miss him just a little bit. It's kind of sad to know that no one will write another good night.

This was Christmas at their house in 1973 or 1974. That was the living room that took up the entire left side of the downstairs.

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A Tale of four siblings