COLUMN: Always in a hurry, have we lost our day of rest?

I have broken down on the side of the road a number of times in my life. I have had flat tires in remote parking lots and blow-outs on busy interstates. An erratic “check engine light” once had us lifting fervent prayers as we hurtled toward the bottom of a steep mountain in Tennessee. 

I parted with an alternator in Paducah, Kentucky. I was feeling so sorry for myself that afternoon that I didn’t need the salt shaker at the Cracker Barrel. The tears rolled down my cheeks and tumbled into my bowl of turnip greens.

And then there was the time when the windshield wipers on our van went out during a summer gully-washer on an inconvenient Friday afternoon in Dublin. It turned out to be a loose wire. The mechanic reached in and whacked something under the hood with a wrench, and we were on our way again.

Still, I can empathize with Malcolm Tucker, the impatient, cigar-smoking salesman from Charlotte, North Carolina, whose Lincoln Continental came to a halt in a sleepy little Southern town called Mayberry in 1963.

It was a clogged fuel line. He suspected it. Nearly everyone else had it diagnosed, too. 

Only he couldn’t find anyone willing to fix it because it was on a Sunday. About the only folks working were the preachers.

I’m not sure if Tucker carried AAA roadside assistance, but he did manage to get his car towed to Wally’s Filling Station. Gomer Pyle was pumping gas at Wally’s, but he was only working part-time to save money for college to become a doctor. Gomer’s grease monkey cousin, Goober, was not around. He was relaxing on his boat at a fishing hole. 

And Wally, the owner of Mayberry’s only service station, hardly looked up from reading the Sunday comics. He wasn’t being rude. He simply told Tucker he could bring it by on Monday, and he would take a look at it.

You may remember this episode called “Man in a Hurry” from “The Andy Griffith Show.’’ Fans of the series regularly rank it one of their all-time favorites of the 249 episodes. 

It first aired midway through Season 3 on Jan. 14, 1963. If you were not around to see it then, chances are you have caught it at some time over the past half-century of black-and-white reruns.

Tucker was a bona fide Type A personality,  always on the verge of blowing a gasket. He threw a hissy fit when the Mayberrians didn’t offer to lift a finger to help him when he had an important business    meeting the next day.

Although Andy and Opie invited him home after church, where Aunt Bee had quite the spread for Sunday dinner, an irritated Tucker paced the floor and declined to sit at the table. He was livid when two sisters, Maude and Cora Mendelbright, tied up the party line for hours, talking about their feet falling asleep.

“You people are living in another world!” he screamed.

Tucker took his high blood pressure with him out on the front porch for most of the laid-back afternoon. Andy played the guitar, and he and Barney sang a duet, “Church in the Wildwood.’’ Barney announced his plans to go home, take a nap, head uptown and get a bottle of pop, then call Thelma Lou and watch a little TV. Andy grinned when he asked the agitated Tucker if he knew how to cut an apple with a knife without breaking the peeling. Those were simple times. Sigh.

Mayberry wasn’t lazy. It was a town with decent, hard-working folks who believed in honoring the Sabbath and attending church. They respected Sunday as a day of rest, reflection and spending time with their family and friends. 

The show’s excellent writers were committed to portraying Mayberry as an idyllic place, with small town values and hometown wholesomeness. Viewers have long appreciated how the series struck a balance      between humor and life lessons.

I used to be curious why the bus that went through town always had “MACON” on its destination marquee. I assumed it might be headed to Macon, North Carolina, since namesake Nathaniel Macon was a native of the Tar Heel state.

But I had the opportunity to interview Jim Clark, who authored several books on the show. He told me that, based on his research, the bus was likely headed to our own Macon, Georgia.

So what would Malcolm Tucker have found in Macon 52 years ago if his car had broken down here instead of Mayberry?

Keep in mind, Macon was more than just a one Floyd-the-Barber town back then.  But, despite the size difference,  I believe the communities would have shared the same moral compass.

People here also would have been at church that Sunday morning, just as many of them will fill the pews this weekend to celebrate Easter Sunday, the most sacred of Christian holidays. Many will adhere to scripture and treat the Sabbath as a day of rest.

Some of you may remember the “blue laws,” which made it unlawful for businesses other than “charities or works of necessity” to remain open on Sundays. Those laws had been on the books since the 19th century.

With the exception of Sunday alcohol sales, which were not allowed until 12 years ago, most of the blue laws were repealed by the Georgia Supreme Court in 1975. That was the same year the Macon Mall – at the time the largest indoor mall in the state – swung open its doors … even on Sundays.

Fast forward to today, when so many businesses are open on Sunday it can hardly be distinguished from any other day of the week. In these times, if Malcom Tucker had car trouble in Macon on a Sunday, he probably would have been back on the road in a few hours.

However, he might be advised to not be such a man in a hurry … and accept Aunt Bee’s offer to sit down and enjoy some fried chicken for lunch. 

Could he sit on the porch and peel the skin of that apple in one long piece?

If you’ve ever seen the happy ending, you know he had it in him all along.

Ed Grisamore has been an honorary member of the Macon chapter of TAGSRWC (The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club) for the past 25 years.