Conversation With A Mule

Comedians today would listen to a monologue such as this and not give it a second thought. Audiences hearing a monologue such as this today might sit quietly for a minute or two, but quickly get bored and maybe even boo.

With the passing of Andy Griffith today at age 86, we’ve lost yet another link to the past.

I don’t remember much of Mr. Griffith’s TV work. I’m just a bit too young for the Andy Griffith Show, though I do remember somehow watching an occasional rerun, probably on Saturday afternoons when the three networks knew nobody was watching and could put up any fool thing hoping to attract even the smallest audience. I’m just a bit too young as well for the Matlock crowd, though I do remember a time or two passing the show as I was once again clicking futilely through the four channels we got on TV to find something to watch. I probably turned the thing off and went outside. Again.

But would I, today, in thinking of this conversation with a mule, change places with those who knew Mr. Griffith at his radio, his vinyl album prime?

You know for an ever-lovin’ fact that I wouldn’t.

But thanks to the squirrelers of memory, I can sit back a bit and listen to his old comedy bits and think of living in a time when this was all there was on the radio – when radio was much more than just squawky love songs. Radio was the internet of the day, with its infinite crackly stations filled with the oddities of humanity, flavored locally.

YouTube is kinda my radio these days, and there’s a lot more to be found out there than on those scratchy AM stations. And once in a while I sail into these old radio comics like Griffith and think, maybe I would trade places with that mule. At least for a little while.