In a message dated 6/1/2006 1:04:38 P.M. Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
4. Mayberry moment For some reason, reading the digest tonight brought back memories of my past life as a musician and how that led to opportunities to meet a few cast members of TAGS. In the early seventies, the band I played bass with was B. J. Thomas's backup band, and we got to travel the USA and the world with him, a great chance to me because I always wanted to do that. BJ and I still keep in touch by phone. In 1974 or 75, I can't exactly remember the date, we went to Hollywood to play on several TV shows---The Tonight Show, The Merv Griffin Show, and Dinah Shore's syndicated talk show, taped at CBS's Television City, where they did all of their shows then. I especially remember meeting Dinah Shore because she was so nice to us and talked to all of us right before we went on. Her kinfolks were from Pike County, Alabama, as were mine, and we had a good time talking about that. What a nice Southern lady she was. One morning, before we taped, I got up sort of early (rare for a musician on the road) and went to the restaurant downstairs for some breakfast. Only two or three people were there, and I saw one guy sitting by himself. It took me a few seconds to realize it was Jim Nabors. He looked pretty tired, and I promised myself that I would NOT go over and bother him, but, after finishing my breakfast, of course I did. He was very nice. I asked him if he had been back to Alabama lately, told him I had recently played in his home town there, and he graciously told me that, no, he had not, it had been a while. I shook his hand and left him alone, but wow, I would have loved to have sat down and talked more, but it would have been rude to do that. A few years later, I saw Jack Dodson at a charity event in Montgomery, Alabama, closer to home. He was sitting in a corner of the room by himself, and as I walked over to him, he stood up and extended his hand. He invited me to sit down, and we talked for a while. He was extremely cordial, and now I wish I had stayed longer and talked to him more, but I couldn't at the time. Some years after I left the music business, I became the editorial cartoonist for the daily newspaper in my home town. The paper's editor, Doug Bradford, grew up with George Lindsey and was his best man at his wedding, so when Goober came to Dothan, Alabama, in 1989, I got to meet him too. So, for a guy who was an Andy Griffith Show fan from the very first episode to the last of its run, I have to consider myself a pretty lucky guy. All of yall have a great Mayberry day! Jimmy Dean down in Dothan, Alabama _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list WBMUTBB@wbmutbb.com http://mail.wbmutbb.com/mailman/listinfo/wbmutbb_wbmutbb.com http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/
