Aunt Bee Lives In My Town

“Why in the world would you want to move to a log cabin in the country?” my friends all asked me when I told them of my plans. It doesn’t make any sense to move way out there. It just doesn’t make any sense to move way out there. “Because I want to go somewhere peaceful and quiet. I want to move to Mayberry,” I firmly informed them. “You know of course that Mayberry doesn’t exist,” was the response hoping to get me to retrieve my sanity. After admitting that my friend was right, that just because I move out to a log cabin in the country does not mean I am going to run into Aunt Bee, Opie and Andy but I was still going to move. I explained to myself that I was looking not for the people of Mayberry but the feeling of it. I knew I could make myself understand if I really tried. A few months after I moved, I had a conversation with a local teenager and in the middle of the conversation I stopped him. He gave me this strange look and then I realized something. “Your dad’s brother’s wife,” I started. “Bee?” he asked. “You mean Aunt Bee.” And so I found my friends were wrong. Down the road and across the road from my old log cabin, living in a new log cabin was Aunt Bee. A coincidence? Perhaps, or maybe I had found my piece of Mayberry.