COUNTRY HUMOR

No forgetting Knotts
By Mitch Jayne

Forty-some years ago I got a job that only lasted 6 years, but one I’ll talk about all my life. I know that because people will keep asking me to.

It was a job playing a part of the Darling family on the Andy Griffith Show, and it was work very much suited to four musical boys from the Ozarks. The only qualifications were that we play music, not talk and look to our Pa Briscoe to speak for us—as in, “The boys are all keyed up”—at which point we showed all the excitement of pond scum.

People seldom ask about the quiet Darlings, because what you saw was what you got, but they ask questions about everybody else in that fictional town of Mayberry—mostly about Andy or his deputy, the bumbling Barney Fife.

Ever since Don Knotts died, people who only knew him as Barney keep asking if he was as funny in person as he was on TV. That’s sort of like asking if Gomer was dumb, Hal Smith (Otis) drank a lot or whether Goober was simple as bait. The answer of course is “no.” One’s rich, one never drank and the other has a college degree.

What they were was actors who wore their parts like clothes, and Don Knotts was an actor equal to Andy. But off camera, Don was quiet and shy, his mind busy memorizing lines. He had a nice grin when spoken to and was friendly, but his mind was on his work.

He would stand patiently waiting for lighting to be set giving no clue to the blast of frenzy he was getting ready to turn loose as officious Barney—going after a jaywalker or reading the riot act to a U-turn culprit.

A lot of friends from Mayberry keep dying-off—as in any town—and I’m always sorry to see them go. But Don, who always claimed he’d never turned down a part, was no doubt ready for the next one.

Next time somebody asks me if he was funny off camera however, I think I’ll tell them this one. Don in his service years was a ventriloquist and traveled with a road show called Stars and Gripes. One day I got to see him entertain Andy using his hand for the dummy, which looked like he was talking to a duck.

“Hey Ope,” he asked his hand, “what did you learn at school today?” to which his hand answered, “I learned to stay away from people who talk to their hangnails.”

Andy loved that kind of stuff and the two of them gave the set such a good-humored flavor that actors from other shows at Desilu were always stopping by to watch or visit. Everybody, it seemed, loved Mayberry.

And as for the rest of us, I don’t think we’re going to have to miss Don all that bad. I think we’re going to see him on that old show another 40 years.

All the news that's fit
By Jack S. Bray

There are two ways to get a good soaking. One, you can take a canoe trip with a drunk down the Current River. Or, two, you can partner on a cattle-feeding deal with a guy who wants to parlay some chicken feed into a real nest egg.

I have done both.

You remember the mid-80s? Fed cattle slid from a March high of $68 to under $60 by October. But experts said the price would rebound above $70 by spring. I remember so well because I was writing stories based on those rosy outlooks and wound up with egg all over my face when the price kept going down instead of rebounding.

Another reason I remember is that a former schoolmate of mine, named Phil, called me and wanted to partner on a pen of cattle. I hadn’t kept in touch with Phil since college. In fact, about all I could remember about him was that he walked on tip-toes all the time and said “like” a lot.

“How much money could a guy, like, make by putting cattle on feed, like, in early December?” Phil said.

That was like asking “how high is up,” but I ran through the math with him—700 pounders bought at $65, with gain costs in the low $50s, would make a bundle if you could sell them next spring at $70 or better. Phil ignored the “if.”

“You know, we oughta, like, buy some cattle to put on feed,” he said.

My better judgment should have been screaming its head off, but Phil’s enthusiasm was contagious. So, we each put up some money and optimistic financial statements and I called a feedlot in western Kansas. The feedlot manager’s order buyer laid in 100 long-tailed yearlings. Phil and I were cattle feeders.

Immediately, Phil became my almost-constant companion. He called me morning, noon and afternoon. Evenings, he stopped by my house.

“I think I’ll take Peg and the kids, like, to Hawaii after we sell our cattle,” he’d say.

Then, we got the first month’s feedlot statement—on the same day cash cattle dropped 75 cents and the Merc futures went down the limit. That night, Phil came walking into my house like a ballet dancer. “My God! We’re, like, losing money,” he sobbed. “A hundred cattle couldn’t, like, eat that much feed in 30 days, could they? And what’s this ‘yardage,’ anyhow?”

The cattle market got worse, and so did Phil’s emotional weather. “They’re down again!” he shouted. “What are we gonna, like, do?”

“Hang in and hope.”

“Couldn’t we, like, hedge them on futures or something?”

I tried to explain to Phil that the Merc quote was below our break-even, before we even backed off the basis.

“What’s that mean?” Phil bellowed.

“It means we’re losing money.”

Cattle prices and Phil’s spirits continued to sink. I took to accepting jobs I didn’t want, just so I’d be out of town where Phil couldn’t reach me. But one evening, after we’d been cattle feeders about 3 months, Phil tracked me down at a motel in Poplar Bluff.

“I think we oughta, like, sell those cattle,” he sobbed into the telephone.

“We can’t,” I told him. “Those cattle need another 60 days at least.”

By now, Phil was audibly wailing. “I should never have, like, let you talk me into this,” he choked. “Peg is upset. I can’t stand much more of this.”

I couldn’t stand any more of it, either. When I got home, I went to the bank and borrowed enough money to buy out Phil’s half-interest in the cattle. A dousing in the Current River would have been a quicker and lot more pleasant way to get soaked.