If there was ever a show that portrayed what we thought family life and rural living should be, it would undoubtedly be the Andy Griffith Show.

Everything worked out in the end, the criminals always got caught and a straight man, small town sheriff always outwitted the savvy G-men from D.C. and the dimwitted SBI agents from Raleigh.

While we know it was just a TV show, the Andy Griffith Show brought joy and laughs to many, centered on North Carolina and spawned the careers of many famous actors, including Don Knotts, George Lindsey and Jim Nabors.

While the show began when I was a just a baby, I rapidly caught up on the beauty of this show through its long life in syndication.

This was North Carolina’s show that was brought to the entire country and later the world. It shattered the stereotype of the typical family - mom and dad and two beautiful children - as Andy Griffith, as Sheriff Andy Taylor, coped with being a single parent and coped with being a law enforcement officer amidst an eccentric cast of characters.

The best to me were the early shows, when Sheriff Taylor was a little more hayseed and goofy before becoming the straight man to Barney Fife, Gomer and Goober Pyle and Ernest T. Bass.

When Sheriff Taylor became a little more slick, the show showed the true talents of a stellar cast. It’s hard to forget Otis the town drunk riding down the street on a cow or Ernest T. Bass getting his diploma.

This show put me in a longtime love affair with classic television and Griffith’s outstanding performance as Lonesome Rhodes in A Face in the Crowd may have contributed to my long love affair with film noir and Southern Gothic literature.

The Andy Griffith Show was, at least in my opinion, a fine work of Southern Gothic - not because it was dark, because it wasn’t, but because it exaggerated what we always think the South should be - front porches, philosopher fathers, strong women, town drunks and backwoods dolts.

I think mostly what this show did was give us an escape, a chance to laugh and a chance to realize that North Carolina is our home.

Rest in peace, Andy Griffith, and thank you for the memories - Lance Martin

Lance Martin is editor and publisher of rrspin.com