Mount Airy, N.C.: The essence of TV's 'Mayberry'
Downtown Mount Airy, North Carolina Credit: Hobart Jones
Product placement is so ubiquitous today that most television viewers don't even notice it. Back when sponsor Ford Motor Co. decided to showcase its Ford Galaxie 500 sedan on CBS's "The Andy Griffith Show," though, it was still a novel idea. It quickly caught on.
"There was a new police car every season it was on the air," says tour guide Roger Sickmiller. We're parked in front of Barney's Cafe on North Main Street in Mount Airy, N.C., getting ready to take a 45-minute "Squad Car" tour ($30/car, tourmayberry.com) of this quaint little town that inspired the equally quaint, but completely fictional, town of Mayberry. "So if you want to know what year it is, you just have to identify the year of the car."
Not realizing the cultural phenomenon the show would become (reruns still air on TV Land and the show is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year - 1960-68), the black-and-white autos were stripped and eventually sold, which is why we're sitting in the bright-red front seat of a replica Mayberry squad car from 1962.
Like the bologna-and-eggs platter on Barney's menu, Sickmiller also is a colorful blast from the past, clad in a tan sheriff's uniform that makes the part-time pastor-turned-innkeeper-turned-part-time tour guide look like a copycat Griffith. (He runs the Maxwell House Bed & Breakfast in downtown.) But that's what people love about Mount Airy: the chance to dip their toes in the folksy, nostalgic, make-believe waters of Mayberry.
Familiar sights
It's easy for drivers traveling Interstate 77 south en route to Carolina beaches or Florida to whiz past the ramp toward town (exit 100). But it's just an 8-mile drive to Main Street, where many of the sites Griffith's TV scripts famously referenced still stand, seemingly frozen in time.
EATS
Wally's Service Station in Mount Airy, NC. Credit: Mount Airy Visitors Center
There's the Snappy Lunch, where Griffith ate as a youngster (opened in 1923, it's Mount Airy's oldest restaurant), and the nearly-as-famous Blue Bird Diner, where a "super" grilled cheese with bacon and tomato sets you back just $3.50.
FLOYD'S CITY BARBER SHOP
Russell Hiatt, 86, who inspired the show's fictional hair-snipping character Floyd Lawson, has been taming men's manes five days a week for more than 60 years. (A cut costs $8, but the 35,000 pictures that paper the shop's "Wall of Fame" are free for the viewing.) The shop is so popular that a half-million tourists have signed Hiatt's guest book (Oprah Winfrey included.) But while granddaughter Emily now lends a hand, he has no thoughts of retiring. "I wouldn't have it no other way," he says.
ANDY GRIFFITH MUSEUM AND PLAYHOUSE
A Squad Car tour also squires you past the relatively new attraction, where a large bronze statue of Andy Taylor and son Opie, walking hand in hand, immortalizes the classic TV series. The actor, who turned 84 on June 1, lives on Roanoke Island in North Carolina's Outer Banks.
The museum is the cat's meow for Griffith fans: Dedicated last September, it holds the largest collection of Griffith memorabilia anywhere. There's the expected movie posters and playbills, along with copies of the singer's 78 rpm records and CDs in glass cases.
Also displayed is one of actor Don Knotts' salt-and-pepper suits, one of Griffith's trademark gray suits from "Matlock" and the pair of signs that hung outside the courthouse on the Mayberry soundstage ($3, andygriffithmuseum.com)
GRIFFITH HOUSE
Sickmiller also drives me past the modest frame home on East Haymore Street where Griffith was raised and is now a place for tourists to rest their heads - it's owned by Hampton Inn and is decorated in '40s style ($175 a night, 336-789-5999).
GAS - AND COURT
The final stop is Wally's Service Station (built in 1937 as a Gulf station), which adjoins a re-creation of the courthouse seen in the TV series, complete with jail cells and Sheriff Andy's desk. By then, you'll feel like you've watched all 249 episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show," which was No. 1 in the ratings during its final year, 1968.
If you're going to Mount Airy
IF YOU GO ...
GETTING THERE Fly into Greensboro/High Point (a center for furniture shopping), which is about a 65-mile drive from Mount Airy.
STAY Lodging depends on taste and budget, with everything from chain motels and camping to rustic cabins in the woods.
TO DO Mount Airy is a mecca for fans of Andy Griffith - besides that, outdoor types will enjoy fishing for trout and channel catfish; there's also canoeing on the Yadkin River and rock-climbing, hiking and birdwatching at nearby Pilot Mountain State Park. The 21st annual Mayberry Days, a weekend of pie-eating contests, checkers games, bluegrass music and more, runs Sept. 23-26.
MORE INFO 800-948-0949, visitmayberry.com
