I feel badly about not getting
Warren Sparrow's Betsy Ross flag picture on the website til rather late in the afternoon yesterday.
The 4th of July was almost over before I got it posted. However, we've had our problems up here as you know. Lots of power still out. I really feel sorry for those folks. Two days of 100 degree temperatures and no air conditioning just about did me in.
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| Andy and Ed in 1957 |
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| Andy Griffith |
I sure was sorry to hear that
Sheriff Andy passed away the other day. I was fortunate enough to meet him before he became so well known. I remember very well the day in 1957, after I had seen his first movie, "Face in the Crowd," when I heard that he was visiting Chapel Hill. I had seen the movie and instinctively knew that he was going to really be "big" someday. His only claim to fame at this time was the record "What it was was football" (which was about watching a game at Keenan stadium with a bunch of students drinking "big oranges.")
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| Don Knotts |
Being in the radio and TV business I also got to meet and interview
Don Knotts, my other "hero" from Mayberry. Both Andy and Don were as nice and "down home" as anybody you'd ever want to meet.
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| Andy's High School picture |
My friend
Bob Raiford, whose hobby was playing "extras" in Hollywood and TV movies, many of which were being filmed in North Carolina for a number of years, told me about meeting Andy in the dressing room off the set of a "Matlock" episode. He said that he mentioned that he had a record show on WBT at the time "What it was, was Football" came out.
Raiford told Andy that when
Orville Campbell (the Chapel Hill record promoter for Andy's record) brought it to him at the station, he listened to it and laughed like crazy!
However, Bob explained that since his show only featured what he considered good standard popular songs, he refused to play the record.
He told me that Andy thought for a moment , then said,
"Well, somebody did, didn't they!" -Ed
