My Family in Virginia

Writing in this blog is making me rethink a lot of the mythology I have about myself. As I look at what I’ve written here during the past few months I see post after post about the pop culture foundation of my childhood followed by an endless attempt to distance myself from it. I blather on about the movies, TV shows, musicals, plays, and celebrities that have had an impact on my development and then I scurry into embarrassed denial: “Oh, wait, these things are not really important to me, it was just a passing thought—silly, isn’t it?” Who am I kidding? Maybe it’s time to accept the fact that my identity was largely shaped by the steady stream of media flowing into my brain from the moment I was capable of sentient thought; time to begrudgingly acknowledge that my childhood mentors were not Marcel Proust and Henry David Thoreau but more likely Jed Clampett and Carol Burnett.

If anything, instead of denying my cultural ancestors, I should be grateful to them for helping me through the more difficult parts of growing up. When my family started breaking apart in the early 1970s, I honestly think that I owe my emotional survival to a certain family from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. “The Waltons” appeared on the scene just at the time my parents were slogging through a monumentally hideous divorce. No matter how ugly it got—screaming matches, doors being broken down, suicide attempts, being lied to about where my mother was for months at a time—I knew I could count on one thing on Thursday nights as I shut my door and upped the volume to real-life-blocking decibels. As soon as I heard that familiar theme music and saw the old jalopy pulling up with John-Boy, Grandpa, and little Elizabeth, I could relax—for at least an hour, anyway. I credit Richard Thomas’s John-Boy Walton for making me want to write. How many young people did he inspire sitting up in his room writing in his journal night after night? My first connection with an obsessive blogger!

My identification with the Waltons was so important to me that I started writing letters to the cast members. This morning I opened up a box that had been taped shut during my last two moves and, to my shock, found a manila envelope stuffed with letters from members of my surrogate family. As soon as I saw the faded envelopes I remembered how these missives gave me such strength as I read them again and again. I think I was most excited when I received the letter at left from Michael Learned. Or Miss Michael Learned, I should say, since that’s how her name appeared in the credits each week (as if we might worry that a cross-dresser was assuming the role of the Walton matriarch). I have no memory of what I wrote to her or how I happened to give her the “Danny Miller Award” which she so sweetly accepts in her reply. I guess I wasn’t completely lacking in self-esteem back then if I had the chutzpah to name an award after myself and bestow it with great fanfare the celebrities of the day. Seeing this letter now I am filled with admiration for this lovely actress. She could have so easily have ignored the hand-printed ravings of that little thirteen-year-old boy from Chicago. The letter became a kind of talisman for me, proof that somehow things would work out in my own family. “Hang on to your spark,” she urged. “I will, Olivia, I will!” I met Michael Learned a few years ago when she appeared in a play with a friend of ours, but I couldn’t bring myself to mention my childhood obsession or how much her letter meant to me.

I love the letters I found from some of the Walton children. Judy Norton, who played oldest daughter Mary Ellen Walton, sent me the above letter written on a ripped piece of her notebook paper. I remember the moment I opened that letter in 1973 and how it felt like I was reading a note from my sibling, complete with typical childlike mistakes (“Your right about the mags.”) I must have been trashing the fan magazines of the day, looking for some way to bond with my TV sister. As the first “women’s libber” in Depression era Virginia, Mary Ellen reminded me of my real-life sister. Mary Ellen was forever brushing up against the status quo and demanding that she be given equal opportunities. The same year Mary Ellen insisted that she be allowed to play sports with the boys, my sister Sue waged a single-handed campaign to allow girls to wear pants to our elementary school. Mary Ellen and Sue both won! Judy Norton tried to shed her Mary Ellen image by being the only Walton to appear nude in Playboy but I won't make any further comment since Olivia, John, and I have worked hard to put this unpleasant episode behind us.

I was especially excited when I received a letter from Eric Scott, who played third oldest son Ben Walton, because he wrote the letter on the back of a page of the script from that week’s show. I felt like I was part of the “in crowd” when the episode aired later that season and I could read along with MY copy of the script! The episode was another anachronistic “women’s lib” story, with Olivia Walton going on strike because she felt her family wasn’t helping around the house enough. Olivia Walton was the perfect 1930s icon for the early 70s—dripping with homespun values while also reflecting the quest for sexual equality. You go, girl! Reading Eric’s letter, I see that I was again looking to bond with my Walton kin, this time by dissing their saccharine TV competitors. “I personally don’t like the Brady Bunch,” he wrote in response. “It is very fake.”

While many kids my age were experimenting with drugs during the 1970s, my drug of choice was the Walton family of Virginia. I could deal with almost anything during the course of the week as long as I could make it to Thursday night. But by the time the series ended in 1982 I was out of college and ready to let it go. To be honest, the show had overstayed its welcome. Will Geer’s Grandpa died in 1978 and Ellen Corby’s Grandma had a severe stroke shortly thereafter that limited her ability to speak. The ultimate betrayal occurred in 1979 when Michael Learned’s Olivia left the show with some trumped-up storyline about moving to Arizona to recover from tuberculosis. As if the real Olivia Walton would have ever left her family. I felt abandoned yet again. Michael Learned popped up on another network as a modern-day nurse but I refused to watch. She did reappear, mysteriously cured, in the Waltons TV movies that were aired throughout the 1980s and 90s but these sequels infuriated me with their reckless handling of my beloved characters. In an effort to place the family against the backdrop of important events in American history such as the Kennedy assassination and the moon landing, they fast forwarded through the decades without aging the characters at all. To us fanatics who knew the exact ages of the seven Walton children when the show began in the year 1933, we were appalled to find Elizabeth still in college when she should have been in her late 40s, John-Boy a young newlywed when in the proper timeline he’d be 55, and John and Olivia Walton celebrating their 40th anniversary in 1969 when we all knew they celebrated their 25th anniversary on the show in the mid-1930s.

Once I moved to Los Angeles, I started collecting Walton encounters. I saw Mary McDonough, who played beautiful Erin Walton, one afternoon at the Bel Air Hotel where she was lunching with a friend. Grabbing my red-haired six-month-old daughter as bait (yes, it’s amazing how low I’ll sink for a Walton), I stood a few inches from Mary’s table until she was forced to say something. “Your daughter has beautiful hair,” she commented. “What?” I said as I reeled around in feigned surprise. “Oh yes, you know people always say she looks like a Walton!” Well, of course, no one had ever made this observation, but Leah did have the exact same shade of hair as Erin Walton so it was a good ice breaker! I later found out that Mary works for the National Center for Policy Research for Women and Families and is a a tireless advocate against silicone breast implants because of her own horrible experience. I ran into Kami Cotler, youngest daughter Elizabeth Walton, at a film screening at the University of Southern California and recently in a local deli. She hasn’t changed much—even Leah recognized her from her TV Land viewings of “The Waltons.” I’ve also had several chats with Jon Walmsley, second oldest son Jason Walton, who married Lisa Harrison’s Toni (the only Jew ever seen on Walton’s Mountain) both on the show and in real-life. Did you know that Jon Walmsley was the voice of Christopher Robin in the original “Winnie-the-Pooh” movie and also used to play guitar for Richard Marx in the late 1980s? A few years ago Jon produced and wrote much of the music for an excellent CD called “Together Again” that reunited all of the living cast members from the show. Leah and I listen to it all the time and cry whenever we hear Michael Learned’s Olivia reciting a poem to Ralph Waite’s John Walton in which she tells him “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” After 70 years of marriage, they still have it!

Kendall’s mom is friends with Ronnie Claire Edwards, who played Corabeth Walton Godsey on the show, and she also knows Earl Hamner, Jr., the real-life John-Boy and the calming voice heard at the beginning and end of every episode. Out of sheer embarrassment I do my best to keep my Walton fawning to a minimum when I see them at Betsy's house. But here, on my blog, I will try once and for all to cast off my shame at my TV-saturated past and embrace the joys and challenges of that cathode ray tube that passes for my brain.

Comments

[david]

Danny: you gotta write a book.

You've got all the memorabilia and the experience to back it up: after all the trashing of mainstream sensibilities, you've got a heart-rending, literally life-threatening experience, and yet popular culture and media saw you through! Even as an adult, you're comforted -- at the same time that you're amused and occasionally outraged -- by the physical presence of it in your present, as well as your past.

Think about it...
david

[Lois]

I agree with David! Danny, you know I've said the same for years and years. You were born to write. This last post cracked my heart wide open. Do it for John Boy!

-Lois

P.S. Since my sister and I weren't 'allowed' to watch TV, I love catching up with all I missed through you! One query: your TV viewing didn't interfere with your reading, right? You were also a voracious reader?

[Danny]

I was, Lois, although my reading tastes when I was very young mirrored some of my pop culture ones: I loved "series" like the Happy Hollisters and the Hardy Boys, anything I could follow from episode to episode, just like my favorite TV shows.

[nappy40]

We're not the same age, but I too grew up watching tv. I remember when Rose O'Donnell had her talk show she often talked about her love of tv and how she knew all the theme songs. So did we.

I think the world has changed from an adult centered life (that's why we watched so much tv, the adults sent us out of the room when they were talking) to a child centered one. The biggest insult to a modern mom is that the tv is babysitting the kids.

I don't see anything wrong with tv and certainly not with the more wholesome shows that were on when we were kids. Nostalgia.

[Danny]

I just found this brilliant quote from Michael Learned in an article on ageism in last month's Los Angeles Magazine. The woman who won four Emmys for playing Olivia Walton said:

"The hardest thing for me is auditioning because when you're hot you don't audition. Suddenly, I have to audition and I'm not very good at it because it goes against every principle of acting that I believe in. And the fact that my ego says, 'Fuck you, why should I have to? If you don't by now know what I'm capable of, then fuck you'. And you can quote me on that."

That's my momma!

[Bill Tong]

Great write-up, Danny! I, too, loved watching "The Waltons" during the 70's. When they were last on broadcast TV during the mid-late 80's (WGN Channel 9), I set my VCR to tape every episode that was broadcast. I still have that collection of VHS tapes. Finally, a DVD box set of the first season is now available, which I now own.

But, unlike me, you received replies to your letters from "The Waltons" cast members and have met several of them in person. Bravo! The only celebrity I've ever met in person (purely by accident) was Mayor Bilandic in 1979, who was crossing the street with his wife to give a speech at University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. I stopped to say hello to him and shook his hand before boarding the L train home from school.

[Anna]

Hey Danny,
I love the show "The Waltons" and have been trying to see if there is any way to contact the cast.Is there any way, I can email them or even snail mail?I am glad you got the chance to actually hear from them.Email me and let me know.Thanks and have a nice day!

[Jo]

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I will being meeting Michael Learned and Tom Bosley on Jan. 3 as part of a fund raiser meant to support our scholarship foundation at the community college I attend and to promote "On Golden Pond," which the two have been performing since August. I am reporting on their appearance at our campus for the college newspaper and found your Web site while doing research for any interviewing I may or may not be allowed to do during that time. :)

Take care,
~jo

[Elizabeth]

Hey Danny!
umm.. well i had a question as the same as someone else already asked, I would like to know if there was any possible chance of meeting Richard Thomas as "John Boy" in the Waltons. I just adored their show and i now own all 3 seasons of the waltons on DVD. If you could e-mail me back that would be great!
Also I live in CT which i heard he visits Hartford alot!

[donna hughes]

I enjoyed reading your site. I grew up glued in front of the tv on thursday nights at 8PM watching the waltons. I still watch the reruns every morning that I am not working. My favorite was elizabeth and always wondered what she went on to do....I had read somewhere she was a waitress...do you know anywhere that I could contact her and/or see a recent pic?

[Vinnie]

What an embarrassement you are to the male race. The Waltons helped you get through your stinking family woes? For God's sake, why didn't you just try Boone's Farm and a fat Bob Marley joint like the rest of us who grew up in the 70's?

Let me guess, for good times you dress up in women's clothing and act out the schoolhouse scenes of Little House on the Prairie? Oy vay, no self respecting Jew would dare post what you posted, true or not.

Listen, Half Pint, I'm Vinnie, I'm Angry, and I'm going to wash my hands now.

[William]

Dear Danny,

I am moving to a new apartment and I ordered cable TV because I have a room mate who I think will want it. I hate entertainment TV today. But I have been watching the Waltons on DVD when I get a chance. My life has been difficult and painful for most of my years but when I watch the Waltons I feel glad to be me and glad to be alive and I just feel good inside. I am glad to hear of another person that likes good things. May God bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, The Lord lift his countenance upon you and give you peace... and protection from ugly and mean emails... and may God help and bless those that write them as they must be hurting or in trouble themself. sincerely,

william

[LITTLE DEBBIE POWERS (DODD) MAIDEN]

John Boy and all...Well, My brother died when I was almost 16 in 1974. He was 17. I wrote my first poems and songs then and now on my own Autobiography. Born with a disablity and lack of confidence I found myself in three bad marrages as this year my third divorce. I found the courage to continue my writings and pray to get them publish and even my story as a Life Time movie someday. The title of it is, "MY NAMES NOT SHORTNECK!" Ha you have to see me to know how I came up with that. But I had come to realize that not only because I haven't really let God pick him the reasons for my wrong choices of husbands. Well, might seem silly to you but I always said I was going to marry a man like JOHNBOY. As we share the writings and poetic thinkings but also wanting to do things for others and not so into yourselves. In fact the men I married weren't into the Walton's or Little House on the Parierre as I was. I may not spell so good but thats what editors help at. But no one can tell me those kind of men are gone. I miss those feelings that the Walton's inspired in me. I pray to meet that special Christian man with those special qualities that JohnBoy brought into my home and heart as I layed on the floor as close as I could to the tv being partly deaf trying my best to see his gentle eyes and hear all his wisdom. I haven't seen yet in a man. What color are they I ask as some say blue some green as mine. I wish I could see me and Jesus in them right now. Thank you for giving me love even if it was during times that death and hate tried to dim these hazel eyes of mine. The real Richard Thomas is married and has his own family as well as the real John Boy. But somewhere out there there are real men of God and with real values who know what real respects mean. And how to care for their family as a whole. As well as every story episode I could relate to in someway. Even in these times not all have bowed to bale, I suppose as I haven't and yes would appreciate a man who ask is there any women out there who would care for them the John Boy type? I truly love those shows who reminds us of all thats still good don't you? Thanks to all the Walton's as you have allowed us in your home too. Just when I needed you most and still there for me. Anyone who wouldn't care for them speaks for themselves who they respect. With great respects, LITTLE DEBBIE(POWERS)DODD

Posted by: LITTLE DEBBIE POWERS (DODD) MAIDEN | August 30, 2007 at 08:42 PM

[Alisa]

Danny, I am almost 43 and grew up with the Walton's too. Now I have watched Walton's reruns nearly EVERY weekday for about 14 years!!! I can recite dialog a lot of times and even guess which epidose is coming on next, from seeing the previous episode! This sweet series has just been such a comfort to me thru many hard times. It is the way things OUGHT to be ya know? I am glad they bring you as much joy as they do me:)

[Ryan James]

Hey Danny!

I enjoyed your write up on the Waltons! I too am a HUGE fan. I started collecting autographs back in 2003 and so far have over 800!! I've got many of the Waltons signatures:

Earl Hamner, Ellen Corby, Ralph Waite, Michael Learned, Richard Thomas, Eric Scott, Mary McDonough, Kami Cotler, Joe Conley, Ronnie Claire Edwards, Jason Wingreen, Wilford Brimley, John Crawford, Patricia Neal

I'm currently waiting on Judy Norton & Jon Walmsley to reply to my letters!! If you get a chance chesk out my Photobucket album that houses around 95% of my Autograph Collection:

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j201/RYJALI/Autographs/

I'm also on a Waltons Forum where you can talk about anything Waltonish:

http://waltonswebpage.proboards83.com/index.cgi

Hope to see you over there soon!

RYAN J.

[Jalissa]

Kami I really like you in the Waltons but their is one movie I want to see you getting married to drew.

[Nicole]

Wow, this is amazing! I'm only 15, but this past year my mom and I have been watching the Waltons almost nonstop - we're halfway through Season 9 right now. I absolutely love the show and don't know what I'm going to do after we finish this season and them Movie Collection.
I've been writing stories almost constantly since I was 10, so I definitely relate to John-Boy. It's amazing being able to have that kind of connection with a TV character!
The Waltons feel like a second family to me. I've even caught myself waving at the TV when I see one of them waving, or even occasionally saying, "Hi!" when I hear one of them greet someone else. I just wish I'd been around when the show was airing so I could have written letters to them, too.

[Paul]

Thank you Danny for sharing this with us,I too believe you should write a book,I would certainly want to read it!Best wishes.

[anthony]

hey danny,at 52 i grew up watching the waltons, never missed an eposode( back then you missed an eposode that was that, no vcr to record) anyhow the waltons made a good impact on my life.. good luck i hope you write a book..i still watch the reruns..
best wishes and thanks.. anthony