After I posted the link to Ted Koppel's little tour of Mt. Airy, I got a lot of messages like this one from J. Tein…
I watched the video and had to wonder why you posted it without comment. You visited Mt. Airy in North Carolina. Did you observe the same things that Mr. Koppel observed?
Well, I was in Mt. Airy for less than twenty-four hours following two days at a comic convention in Charlotte. Unlike Ted Koppel, I didn't go around talking to people for however long he did. I didn't ask anyone about their politics. I didn't ask any black people if they'd experienced racial discrimination. Matter of fact, I don't think I saw any black people in Mt. Airy and that, I assume, had to do with how little of the town I covered — two restaurants, one hotel, one museum, a retirement home and the airport in nearby Greensboro.
I'm not dodging your question. I'm declining to make a judgement based on not very much evidence…something I wish more people would do.
Everyone I encountered in North Carolina was nice and friendly and really no different from the people I've met anywhere in the United States or my three brief trips to Canada. Admittedly, I have not traveled much in my life. The three Canadian excursions were all to comic conventions and people tend to be pretty much the same at comic conventions. They all ask me what Jack Kirby was like and what the hell do I do on Groo? I have been nowhere else outside the continental United States and to less than half of those states.
When I've been in different cities not for conventions, I still haven't seen much difference. I didn't see the people I met in Mt. Airy as particularly different from the people I met in Muncie or the people I meet in Los Angeles. But maybe it's that I didn't go looking for differences as Ted Koppel did.
He interviewed one small bus full of people who were almost all pro-Trump and there was a woman who was concerned that people would think they're stupid. Well, yeah. I suspect that anywhere you go, there are people who are pro-Trump and people who are anti-Trump and they all think those of the other mindset are stupid. But that political opposition aside, most people are nice and friendly, at least in my limited experience.
You know what I did find that Ted Koppel found? He spoke with one family that was visiting the Andy Griffith Museum. When I was there, I visited that museum with my beloved Betty Lynn, who was in a wheelchair. In my report after the trip, I wrote…
I was pushing her from my rental car towards the museum when a visiting family approached and asked, pretty please, if Betty would allow a photo of her and the two young girls in the family. Of course she would. She was so nice to those people, answering their questions and appreciating their love of the show.
The conversation Mr. Koppel had with the family he encountered was almost identical to the conversation with the family who asked to meet Betty. It was not the same family but both spoke of The Andy Griffith Show as a teaching instrument to instill morals and values in the children. That show has endured to some extent because of that. Whether you think it's a good or bad thing, it really does mean that much to some people. And I don't think it's that way just in Mt. Airy.