A BACKWARD LOOK

My roots in the Virginia earth are deep. My mother’s people came here from the walled city of Lucca in the Tuscany region of Italy. They came as indentured servants to Thomas Jefferson who intended to start a wine industry in Virginia. They brought cuttings from their vines but the grapes did not adapt to the Virginia soil, and withered away.

Not so the Gianinni clan. On land granted to them by Mr. Jefferson they became farmers in the shadow of Monticello Mountain. They prospered in Albemarle County and intermarried with a group of footwashing Baptists.

At the same time my father’s people had emigrated from Wales, leaving their village of Hanmer near the northern border of Wales and England. They had acquired land along the James River and were raising tobacco. They tended to be tall and thin, a sentimental crew, who loved their families, and their wine, and who had to be goaded by their wives to attend church, but once there they could out sing the clearest and loudest voice in the choir.

Somehow descendants of these two clans, in the Great American Melting Pot tradition, found each other, married, and their descendants, the families of my mother and my father, early in the new century moved to a small village in Nelson County to work in the soapstone quarries and mill. When my Grandfather Hamner developed polio, and was no longer able to take care of his family, my own father, at twelve years of age quit school, and took a job toting water to workers in the soapstone quarries at Schuyler. My mother graduated from high school but, as she used to claim, she went through high school eight more times while coaching each of her children through to graduation.

Of their eight children seven of them were normal, but one was strange. That was me.

I was an odd looking boy, leaping to six feet tall when I was fourteen, all long, skinny wrists, unruly red hair, shoulders slumped in an attempt to lean closer to my companions.


Earl and friends at Schuyler High School. 1939.

We were in the midst of the Great Depression of the Twenties and Thirties. Like our neighbors we were self-sufficient but cash money was almost non-existent. And I had a secret, strange and impossible dream.

Years later, when I was writing the screenplay for my television movie “The Homecoming” I tried to put into words some of those alien, confused, and mysterious yearnings.

In the play, Olivia, John-Boy’s mother has just discovered a tablet the boy has hidden under his mattress. She demands to know what is in it. He replies:
“You know what’s in this tablet, Mama? All my secret thoughts- how I feel, and what I think about. Things I never told anybody ‘till now. What it’s like late at night to hear a whippoorwill call and its mate call back, the rumble of the midnight train crossen the trestle at Rockfish, watchen water go by in the creek and knowen that some day it’ll reach the ocean and wonderen if I’ll ever see the ocean. Sometimes I hike over to Route 29 and watch the people in their cars and wagons go by and I wonder what their lives are like. Things stay in my mind, Mama. I can’t forget anything. It all gets bottled up and sometimes I feel like a crazy man. Can’t sleep or rest till I rush off up here and write it in that tablet.

“I do vow,” replied Olivia.

“If things had been different, Mama, I think I could have done somethen with my life. What I would have liked, Mama, was to have tried . . .to be .. a writer!
“If that’s what you want, couldn’t you still try? “ Asked Olivia.

“It wouldn’t be right,” he answered. “Not in these times. It takes a college education to be a writer and even if we had the money it wouldn’t be right to risk it all on me. And anyway I can’t disappoint my daddy. He’s got his heart set on me taking up a trade.”

Olivia replied, “He just want you to know how to make a living.”
“I could sure never do that scribblen things down in a tablet.”

But time would prove me wrong. Through the intervention of Laura Horsley, the wife of our company doctor I received a scholarship to the University of Richmond. But that was only half the battle. The scholarship paid for tuition only. There was still food and board, textbooks to be bought, fees of several kinds. Through the generosity of three of my father’s sisters I was taken into their home in Richmond and given food and lodging. Our local Baptist minister gave me a crash course in Latin, one of the requirements the University needed before I could qualify to accept the scholarship. My father ruefully parted with the white shirt he had planned to be buried in, and my mother spent the money she earned from selling eggs and buttermilk to buy me a suit from Sears and Roebuck. She showed a picture of it to me in the catalogue before it arrived – “the fabric is of green herringbone, with vest to match and an extra pair of trousers.” And it cost nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents. Took every cent of my mother’s buttermilk money!

I entered the University of Richmond in the autumn of 1940. I was unsure of myself, in an alien world, among other boys who were obviously more sophisticated in their manner and dress. The largest city I had visited until now was Charlottesville, usually on a Saturday morning when country people clogged Main Street in their horse and buggies. I had never ridden a streetcar, driven a car, or talked on a telephone.

But I was on time for my first class, and the strangeness gradually went away. The tall boy with the red hair wearing the green herringbone suit was on his way! A writer was in the making!

That was the autumn of 1940. And just recently, decades later, I received the following stunning announcement.”

LIBRARY OF VIRGINIA ANNOUNCEMENT

Earl Hamner to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

Nelson County native Earl Hamner, writer of novels, television shows, and movies and the force behind the semiautobiographical television series The Waltons, will receive the 2011 Literary Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia at the 14th Annual Literary Awards Celebration on October 15, 2011.

Hamner grew up in Schuyler, Virginia, with seven brothers and sisters. From an early age he exhibited a love of words and writing. When he was six his poem, “My Dog” was published on the Children’s Page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. His potential was recognized and he received encouragement from his teachers and members of the tight-knit community.

Hamner received a scholarship to the University of Richmond, but midway through his sophomore year Hamner was drafted. He spent time learning to drive tanks and diffuse mines, but his ability to type landed him in the Quartermaster Corps. While in the U.S. Army Hamner began to submit stories for publication.

After his discharge in March 1946 he returned to Richmond and briefly worked for local radio station WMBG. In the fall of 1946 Hamner enrolled in the school of broadcasting at the University of Cincinnati and graduated in 1948.

Shortly after graduation Hamner went to New York City and found work as a radio writer for NBC. His first book, Fifty Roads to Town, was published by Random House in 1953 and in 1961 his novel Spencer’s Mountain was published by Dial Press.

He began writing scripts for episodes of the Twilight Zone and CBS Playhouse. The film rights to Spencer’s Mountain were purchased by Warner Bros. and Hamner was on his way as a success in Hollywood. In 1970 The Homecoming was published by Random House and became a CBS special starring Patricia Neal and later was the basis of the long-running and hugely popular television series The Waltons. Hamner garnered additional fame as a writer for Falcon Crest, a prime time soap opera, which aired on CBS from 1981 to 1990.

Hamner has received numerous honors including:

TV-Radio Writers Award (1967)

George Foster Peabody Award for Distinguished Journalism (1972)

Virginian of the Year Award from Virginia Press Association (1973)

An Emmy for Best Drama Series for The Waltons (1974)

National Association of Television Executives Man of the Year Award (1974)

Virginian Association of Broadcasters Award (1975)

Frederic Ziv Award from the University of Cincinnati for Outstanding Achievement in Telecommunication

P.S. I know I'm shameless, but I couldn't resist adding that my new book ODETTE, A GOOSE OF TOULOUSE, has just been published and is selling briskly on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.

And I just received word that a new short story, 'The Woods Colt," has been selected for inclusion in an anthology of mystery and fantasy to be published in the fall.
Warm Virginia greetings by way of California!

Earl

What’s That Goose Doing In Your Office?

Often when visitors come to my office they walk in and observe, “This isn’t an office. It’s an aquarium!” They aren’t far off except that the fish are not alive, but carved figures I have collected them from all over the world.

Lately visitors ignore the fish figures and want to know about the goose. It’s a noble bird that sits at a place of honor in the middle of my desk. Her name is Odette and her story that begins some years ago when our friends, John and Nota McGreevey invited Jane and me to join them on a barge cruse on the Canal du Midi that winds its way from Bordeaux to Toulouse.

It was autumn in France and I was back in a country I love. I first came to France as a soldier in World War Two. Now I was back as a tourist. It was autumn and the plane trees along the canal were golden yellow. The food on the barge was superlative and the scenery was magical. The canal wound it s way through small villages and farmland. Each view was memorable and unique.

It was at a small village along the canal where I came upon my first Toulouse goose. It was a gorgeous creature with gray feathers laced with whiter and its expressive eyes were huge and brown. Our guide from the barge pointed out that it was still young but later it would be force fed copious amounts of grain until its liver was huge and then the goose would be slaughtered and its liver made into pate, or as the guide described it “a culinary delight.”

And the guide said all these dreadful things right in front of the poor goose, and when she leaned forward toward me and looked at me with those big brown eyes I could tell that she had heard and understood every word.

That was when the inspiration came to write ODETTE, A GOOSE OF TOULOUSE. In the book Odette is destined to die for her liver, but because she is endowed with a special gift she saves her own life in a most surprising way.

The book is illustrated by the students in Judith Victoria Hensley’s 6th Grade class at Wallins Elementary and Junior High School in Wallins Creek, Kentucky. Judith Hensley is a teacher, writer, and photographer and under her guidance her pupils have created illustrations that are original, artful, and at times quite innocent and at other time most sophisticated. As far as I know this is the first time a book has been illustrated by school children.

“ODETTE, A GOOSE OF TOULOUSE” is available from Amazon.com as well as Barnes and Noble.com. It can be ordered through your local bookstore or directly from the publisher at:

BearManor Media
P. O. Box 1129
Duncan, OK. 73534-1129
Phone: 580-252-3547

Have a good read, and if you own a goose = be kind!

REMEMBERING PATRICIA NEAL

How could one not adore Patricia Neal? I first met her when she arrived from London to portray a character based on my own mother in a television special called “The Homecoming.”

True to her dedication to her work she had memorized the script word for word. She asked for one change which I happily made. The character she was to play I had originally named Dorrie. Pat revered the role and asked if I would change the name to Olivia after the daughter she had lost. And the name remained Olivia through the long running sequel to “The Homecoming” when the series became “The Waltons.”

The scenes between Richard Thomas, who played the young mountain boy who aspired to be a writer and Patricia who portrayed his mother were especially moving. No one in the my family had ever gone to college much less to have an ambition so foreign to our backwoods way of life. Nevertheless Patricia captured just the right attitude of doubt and wonder and support of this unlikely son. Richard in turn was a stunning partner in the scenes.

Most adult actors would rather face a firing squad than work with a cute child. The youngsters who played the Walton children weren’t just cute. They were accomplished actors posing as children. Every one of them should have been arrested and sent to jail for scene stealing. But Patricia was a pro and she gave each of the children the same respect she gave to her fellow adult actors, and their scenes are extraordinary to this day.

All of the exterior scenes of “The Homecoming” were to be filmed in the Grand Tetons. Fielder Cook, the director, in making out his schedule, decided to lighten Pat’s work load when possible. So he arranged for Pat’s exterior scenes to be filmed on the CBS backlot here in town. Pat wouldn’t hear of it and insisted that she make the trip to Wyoming, and did several of the most demanding and compelling scenes there. In one scene, where Pat takes a long walk along a county road, the script called for snow. But the skies were clear. There was not a cloud in the sky. Fielder Cook, ever striving for miracles, bowed his head, and said prayerfully, “Now Sir, if You would be so kind!” And snow began to fall!

Another memory of Pat that I treasure came about when my son, during a college vacation was visiting London. I gave him Pat’s telephone, told him to call her and give her my love. When Scott phoned, Pat insisted that he come to tea. She sent Ronald Dahl down to London to pick up Scott and bring him out to Great Missenden. I doubt if Scott has had such a distinguished chauffeur since, or such good company at tea.

Some years later Pat was in town on her way to Vancouver to make a movie. She let me know that she was here and I informed her that my mother was coming to visit. “Oh, I want to meet her,” Pat exclaimed. But my mother was to arrive the day after Pat was to leave. “I’ll just have to change my schedule” declared Pat. So the day my mother arrived I took her over to the Beverly Wilshire where Pat was staying. Pat met us at the door and said to me “Shoo. I already know you. I want to know your mother. Come back later.” About an hour and a half later when I knocked on the door they were still in animated conversation.

My mother was a country woman who had spent most of her life having children and nurturing a huge family. Her life was a dramatic contrast to the life of a legendary film actress. I was curious.

“What did you and Pat talk about?” I asked my mother on our way home.

“Oh,” my mother replied, “Lots of things, but mostly about our children.”

Two great ladies whose lives briefly touched. It was a privilege to know each of them.

Amigos,

I know, it’s been a while, and I owe you an explanation. Here’s what happened. That sweet natured, kindly, well mannered guy you used to know has become a cantankerous old geezer who sits in front of the television set, shouting obscenities and throwing things at it.

Part of the problem is age. When I went to my doctor not long ago to complain about my knees he said, “There isn’t much you can do. They’re just old knees.” Aside from that I am well and there is even some news about a new book that will be coming soon.

When I was a young man I told myself that when I got old I would be tolerant of the young. I promised myself that with the wisdom that would come with the years I would rise above youthful follies. I would smile at the antics of the young; try to understand their language and their behavior.

It didn’t happen.

So here I am in my “golden years!” You do get some breaks, like lowered prices on some items like restaurants and theaters. But the hell with senior rates at the movies! Most of them aren’t worth even the reduced price, acted for the most part by unappealing people, and filled with gratuitous violence and celebrations of perversity. What ever happened to movies like “All About Eve,” Citizen Kane,” “Great Expectations” “It Happened One Night,” and “Gone With the Wind?”

While many of the problems I have are in what the mother of a friend of mine used to call “my mental mind,” most of my disabilities are physical.

There have been suggestions that the stairs in our beach house will make it necessary for us to sell and find an “alternative life style.” No way. I’m going to crawl up them steps on my knees if I have to. Well, maybe on the left one, the right one just don’t work hardly at all.

Where is the world we used to know?

I mean look what’s happened to our language. Yuknowhahmean? Of course you know what I mean. Either that expression or the shorter version “Yuno?” punctuates just about every attempt at communication made by half our population. I suspect there is an underlying cause for this aberration. I suspect that we have grown so alienated from each other, so distrustful of, or ignorant of our language, that we aren’t sure that what we are trying to express is actually getting through to the other person. So we have to keep asking, “Do you know what I mean? Am I getting through to you? Yuno?"

Even some of our great institutions have fallen into the trap of trying to be cool and appealing to “the youth audience.”

For years I have taken pride in the fact that I am a member of the National Geographic Society. It was formed back in 1888 for the purpose of promoting the conservation of the world’s cultural, historical and natural resources. You don’t just subscribe to the National Geographic Society. You don’t just become a member - you belong to this distinguished organization – one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. I will confess that I have often looked for ways to mention casually in conversation that I am a member of the National Geographic Society.

You should also know that I am a sucker for big fish. I love to catch them, to write and read about them, and to watch others catch them on television.

So I became excited when I saw an ad for a story about a man’s attempt to catch a monster fish in some South American river. I turned on the television only to find that the program had been produced by NAT GEO! Surely I thought, this is not my National Geographic Society. But I was wrong. How this venerable institution has allowed this outrage to take place, I don’t want to know. I tell this to you in confidence. Don’t mention this to anybody. God knows I don’t want the entire world to know that I am a member of something called NAT GEO.

The same thing has happened out here in California in the music world. This won’t come as any surprise to most of you since weird things are happening out here all the time.

While I was growing up back in Virginia during the Great Depression I was an avid fan of The Grand Old Opry. I still love country western music, but somewhere along the way I also acquired a taste for more “serious” music.

I remember a remarkable experience right after World War Two when I was a soldier stationed in Paris. There was a concert conducted by Pierre Monteaux at Le Palais de Chaillot of all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies. Whenever I could get a pass I went to these concerts.

Recently I was reading the Entertainment Section of the Los Angeles Times and an ad caught my eye. It invited me to a performance of among other works, one of Beethoven’s symphonies. My interest perked up until I saw that the music was being performed by L.A. Phil.

L.A. Phil sounded to me like he could have been a cab driver who sang to his passengers or the jolly butcher at the meat counter at the Farmer’s Market or even the author of one of those Internet ads offering devices for enlarging one’s manhood, and then I realized it was short for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

No way I will attend a performance by L.A. Phil.

Some of you may remember a time when we were fortunate to have such great singers as Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney. They were people with talent and style and something we used to call “class.” I hobbled into these vintage years with Frank and Rosie and others like them, loved them and their music, bought their recordings and grieved when they left us.

Today we see such oddities as Lady Gaga. Recently she was the guest on an early morning show. Her entrance on stage was a doozie. She materialized in a cloud of smoke in an upright position but then proceeded to sing much of her song while lying prone on the platform. Most recently on the same show they featured a young boy, not even into his teens, who sang with his adenoids and kept stroking his genitals. I suspect this was a bad habit he picked up from old Michael Jackson videos, but on the other hand he could have simply been checking to see if there was anything there.

The object of my wrath on television at the moment is the NBC newsman, Brian Williams. I kind of liked Brian when he first took over that position from Tom Brokaw. He looked like the kind of guy I might enjoy going fishing with.

But then I began to worry that Brian didn’t know what country he was in. He kept referring to “this country” as if he just happened to be some place and wasn’t quite sure what country he was in. And finally it came to me that Brian was talking about “our” country. I counted one newscast in which Brian referred seven times to our country as “this country.”

I know this sounds naïve, but in this time in our country where there is so much discord, when politics have divided our citizens so sharply, when we face such dangerous enemies, I wonder if it might make a difference if we thought of “this” country as “our” country and feel some small smidgen of shared patriotism and pride in the good old U. S. of A.

I wrote Brian a letter asking him to follow our Presidents’ good example and refer to The United States of America as “our” country, but so far I haven’t heard back from him.

I am really put off by people who talk fast.

Recently there was a young woman on the Today Show who talked so fast that I suspect she had trouble understanding what she was saying herself.

She was probably just graduated from Vassar a day or two ago but oh my goodness, she knew everything about everything.

She was an authority on several topics one of them being the war between men and women. Marriage was her specialty and she informed us that the institution was in trouble in “this country” because partners had taken to sleeping in separate beds, or God forgive them, in separate rooms.

I sent her note explaining the effect that snoring could have on a marriage. I wrote it from personal experience. I have a deviated septum, which causes me to snore so vigorously that I have been known to disrupt the sleep of folks living blocks away. Rather than let my affliction destroy an otherwise extremely happy marriage Jane and I elected to sleep in separate rooms. And we will be celebrating our 57th anniversary this coming October. So far the knowledgeable young lady from Vassar has not responded either.

I still have in my office an upright Royal typewriter. It is in perfect working order and often I work on it for the fun of hitting the keys. The sound brings back happy memories of all those early years when I wrote novels and poems and radio scripts on a similar machine.

But today I work on a computer. It’s faster and at eighty-seven I am trying to finish a novel as well as a screenplay before going to that great Writer’s Guild in the sky. So speed is a necessity. There is one advantage of the computer over the typewriter. You have probably noticed that I have used an extraordinary number of misspelled words.I have been a terrible speller all my life. I never really mastered the art. So I use the spellchecker once in a while on the computer, but I warn you it can turn on you.

For instance I have a fine man for a son in law. He is a considerate, solid citizen, a student of history, a concerned citizen, and a devoted husband to my daughter.

I once sent Pepe an e-mail and before I hit the send button I ran the spell check. Somehow the Spell Check changed Pepe to Peeps, a name you might use to describe a little yellow baby chick.

Well, there is nothing yellow or chicken about Pepe, but he is a good-natured man and the name stuck. In addition to his other good qualities Peeps is a computer expert and it is due to his expertise that these words are being transferred to my BLOG.

So until you hear from me again I’ll just be sitting here listening to L.A. Phil on the radio, watching a middle aged woman in hot pants shouting lyrics to a song I can’t understand, and switching over occasionally to watch fishing stories on Nat Geo, writing notes to Brian Williams to remind him what country he is in and throwing things at the television.

Warm regards and Adios!

Earl

Where is Everybody

Actors, directors, writers and crew on a film or a television series will often claim, “We’re a family“.

I expect that such feelings do develop over time in some films. At the height of production folks on a series often spend more time on a sound stage than they do at home. They may see more of each other during a day than they see of their own families. And some actors, not all, inhabit the character they are portraying so completely that sometime the line between play-acting and reality becomes a little blurred.

Those of us involved in the production of “The Waltons” really were a family. In the first place the actors were portraying characters based on members of an actual family. Some of the actors who portrayed the Walton children were as young as six when we began filming. In the following ten or so years they worked together, went to school together, ate together. They also grew up together and even today they are close to each other.

Sometimes it was interesting to see the actor, in real life, taking on the traits of the character he or she was portraying. I have a fond memory of Ellen Corby shouting to one of the young actors, “Watch where you’re going! You want to break your neck?” And certainly everybody, even many viewers, loved Will Geer as if he were truly his or her grandfather.

Now that they are both in Heaven I think I can safely tell this about Will and Ellen: If scene stealing were a crime they both would have landed in jail long ago. Ellen was forever fidgeting on camera to attract the attention of the viewer.

Sometimes Will would hold her by the back of her costume to keep her from moving about. But of course she was forced to such measures because Will knew every trick in the actor’s book to dominate a scene.

Often their “stage children” confided in their stage parents, Michael and Ralph, when they needed a grown up ear. It was especially moving to see, as the series neared its end, the efforts that Ralph and Michael took to assure their “stage children” that the family would remain “family.”

All these years later, we Waltons keep in touch. We are still a family, and in answer to the many inquiries I receive about them, here is what everybody is up to these days:

RICHARD THOMAS – JOHN-BOY WALTON

Richard is back on Broadway. He is performing at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, only a few blocks from where he made his stage debut in “Sunrise at Campobello’ at the age of seven!

This time Richard appears along with David Spader, David Alan Greer and Kerry Washington. The play has been described as “the riveting new play by America’s foremost playwright and Tony Award winner, David Mamet.” In the play, three attorneys, two black and one white, are offered a chance to defend a white man charged with a crime against a black women.

In Richard’s words “It’s about things that no one says. It’s strong stuff. Provocative, but not shocking for the sake of being shocking.”

I am always amazed at the range of Richard’s talent. Just a few years ago I was in the audience for his remarkable performance in Richard III. I admired him tremendously in his masterful enactment of an embattled juror in “Twelve Angry Men,” and then to watch him with equal skill able to transform himself into an earnest boy from the backwoods of Virginia who yearned to be a writer.

MICHAEL LEARNED – OLIVIA WALTON

I ran into Michael and her husband, John, not long ago in a restaurant, and I can tell you that Michael is still as gorgeous and as radiant as ever. She still does a lot of theater and occasional guest appearances on television. She told me that she has been filming a guest shot on “GENERAL HOSPITAL.” She was not exactly sure when her performance will air, but your local television schedule will have the information when it is telecast.

Soon after that I sent her a note asking about her immediate plans and here is her reply:

This summer I'm scheduled to be in Sarnia Ontario Canada, doing “DRIVING MISS DAISY.” I'll be at the Starbrite Theater, which is about an hour from the Detroit border. It's on Lake Huron so I'm looking forward to some time back in Canada where I raised my kids. Lake Huron is where we spent many happy days on the beach, when the kids were small and their father and I were performing at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario. I'll be there in Sarnia in July and August. In the meantime I feed my wilds birds who are soaked through at the moment, but still singing their hearts out in the ivy bushes outside my window.

RALPH WAITE – JOHN WALTON

Ralph and I have been playing telephone tag. I have been missing him at his California home and I am guessing he may be in New York or on the road. I still managed to find a quote.

The current issue of TV Guide lists TV’s TOP FAMILIES OF ALL TIMES! Our series is listed as Number 6. The story reads as follows:

“John and Olivia Walton, Ralph Waite and Michael Learned, raised seven children during the Depression, and the series saw them through World War Two. Bathed in sentimental nostalgia for simpler times and unchallenged values, “The Waltons” was an escape for the social turbulence of the ‘70s.”

And here is Ralph’s comment from that same article: “A lot of people felt they had lost their anchor, and this was a reminder of what people wanted a family to be, with an emphasis on work and honesty and education and basic American values. The show’s iconic sign off, as the family, all under one roof, says goodnight to each other while the lights go out, was recently spoofed in a Geico ad. “It’s a very powerful symbol, said Waite. “It still resonates.”

JON WALMSLY – Jason Walton

The last time I had a chance to visit with Jon was at The Waltons International Fan Club Reunion in Virginia last November. Carolyn Grinnell, President of the Fan Club, had invited Jon, his wife Marion and me to be guests of honor. At one of the events which took place at the Baptist Church in my hometown, I also had the pleasure of introducing three original “Waltons”: my sister, the inspiration for Elizabeth, Nancy Jamerson and her husband, Garnett; my sister, Audrey Hamner, the model for Erin, and my brother, Paul, known on the series as Ben. Another highlight at the church was a recitation by Marion Walmsley of “Silent Night, Holy Night” in her native German.

Jon is one of the busiest actors/writers/musicians I know so I asked him to tell us in his own words where he is up to these days:

”First and foremost,” he wrote, “I am enjoying spending time with the love of my life, my wife Marion. We had a wonderful time at The Walton’s fan club reunion in Charlottesville, VA in November, and then were off to Arizona and New Mexico for some musical gigs (more on this later). We also managed to squeeze in some sightseeing in Sedona, AZ and along the old Route 66. Christmas was spent in California, and then we were off to Germany and Austria for New Year with Marion’s family. We had great weather, and the Tyrolean Alps were spectacular. My latest project is called ABBEY ROAD MEMORIES. It’s a live concert show featuring a great band along with special guest artists, performing the entire Beatles ABBEY ROAD album. Between “side one” and “side two” the band performs a medley of British hits recorded at the Abbey Road Studio, then the special guests play their hits (also recorded at the famous studio!) We just finished our first run of shows in Arizona and New Mexico. The shows were sold out and the audience went wild every night. The headliners this time were Denny Laine (Wings, Moody Blues) and Joey Molland of Badfinger.Soon, it will be time to hit the road again.

In addition, I have been writing and recording music for the “Elf Sparkle” cartoon for Nickelodeon as well as providing voice characterizations.

Of course, I am still working with my own bands “The U.K. Beat” and my latest baby, “The Blues Odyssey”, as well as doing solo gigs around Southern California.

If you’d like to keep up date, please make sure to join the Jon Walmsley fanpage , as well as The U.K. Beat fanpage, on Facebook. Also visit www.theukbeat.com and www.thebluesodyssey.com for complete info on the bands, live videos, photos, and more!

JUDY NORTON TAYLOR – MARY ELLEN WALTON

Over the course of the life of the series Judy Norton Taylor was required to grow from a pugnacious little girl to a sensitive teenager and finally to become a highly capable nurse and mother. Having watched the excellence of Judy’s performances in these various challenging roles it will come as no surprise that following the series she has excelled not only in acting, but also in writing, directing and producing. In these capacities she has worked in theaters in England and Canada as well as here at home.

Her reviews in each of these fields have been most laudatory and I was tempted to reprint some of them, but I found another review for another of her talents I haven’t even mentioned yet, singing. I will let the review speak for itself

A STELLAR EVENING WITH JUDY NORTON AT STERLINGS
BY
Don Grigware

“This was my first cabaret review for 2010 and I was not disappointed. An Evening with Judy Norton was a stellar show with a true night club star. Gifted and experienced she is a consummate artist whose selection of songs was guaranteed to entertain her audience. Judy makes you feel right at home. She made her way to the stage with “I’m a Stranger Here Myself,” and once there followed through with a series of tunes that highlighted her career.

Highlights of the seventy minute show included a snappy “Le Jazz Hot,” a fabulous rendition of “Stompin’ At the Savoy” and a deeply felt medley of love tunes. Her encore of “There’s No Business like Show Business” kind of sums up Judy Norton’s life as actress singer, director and writer. She is one happy gal who‘s done it all in this biz and has surely ended up the better for it. A balanced and contented woman, Norton’s a dynamic performer with charm, a great instrument and a lot of love to give.

Never one to slow down, when I spoke with Judy she was preparing for a concert style show, “From Judy, WithLove” two shows in Grapevine Texas and two shows in Granbury, Texas as well as a benefit Gala Concert for the Musical Theater of Los Angeles at the Met Theater in Hollywood on April 7th.

ERIC SCOTT – BEN WALTON

In response to my note Eric wrote: One special bit of news. I have just finished our friend, Joe Conley’s book and liked it a lot. It is called IKE GODSEY OF WALTON’S MOUNTAIN” and it can be ordered from Bear Manor Media,PO Box 71426, Albany, Georgia, 31708.

As for as the old Scott homestead, we are all doing great. Ashley is finishing high school this semester and has received two college acceptances. She is waiting on six more and we are planning a road trip in April to visit the campus' that are in the running. Emma is learning so much in second grade and is in the Brownies.
Jeremy is in Kindergarten and has just started on a little league team and really enjoying it. He is riding a two wheel bike now and is constantly in motion. He reminds me so much of myself at that age, I think you can vouch from personal experience that my hands are going to be full with him!

We spend a lot of our weekends at the beach house and we are so lucky to have these special mini trips. Cindy and I will be observing our tenth anniversary in March. We are going to Las Vegas for the celebration.

MARY BETH MCDONOUGH – ERIN WALTON

Mary Beth has a recurring role on the popular CBS drama, “The New Adventures Of Old Christine.” In addition to her acting career she has finished her autobiography, “Lessons From the Mountain, From Walton to Woman.” It should be out this year!

I was especially pleased when Mary asked me to write a forward to her book. It is a valuable work and will shed light on a subject of much concern to women young and old.. In part, in the forward, I wrote:

“Ten years after “The Waltons” had run its course, Mary had become a mature woman, an accomplished actress, and a great beauty. After leaving the series and work was scarce, she took a seemingly innocent step toward a more active career. Going on the notion that a “fuller” figure would be an asset in her work she underwent breast implantation. Mysterious symptoms began. Her health became more and more impaired. Eventually she discovered that as a result of the implants she now suffered lupus, and equally horrifying she found that her daughter had similar symptoms.

It is at this point that her book turns from a story of a child becoming a mature actor into the story of a woman on a quest and a cause.

Part detective work, part medical research, her own health as well as that of her daughter are at stake as she sets out to discover the role of breast implants in the illness they were each now suffering. Resistance was there at every turn, more often than not, from paid consultants of powerful medical supply companies.

Once armed with knowledge Mary has taken steps to inform all women of the potential danger, one such step being the writing of this book. It is a revealing story that took courage and strength to tell. It is a story of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity at its finest.

Check her web site marymcdonough.com to find out more about Mary Beth, her book, life coaching and acting classes. She has a fan page on Face Book, here's the address to contact her there.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Mary-McDonough/274441120496?ref=ts

DAVID HARPER – JIM BOB WALTON

I last visited with David in November at the memorial service for his father, actor Paul Harper. Paul had been a well-known character actor, a versatile performer who had appeared in many major films including the legendary “Wild Bunch.”

Since that time David has been busy tending to his father’s estate, but when we spoke today he was considering reactivating his acting career. In his words: “I feel like Clark Gable who said he hated acting but it’s a good way to make a living.”

In our conversation I also learned something about David that I had never known. He is a History buff and is especially well informed about the Civil War. His interest grew out of his early interest in books and he expressed special gratitude to his parents and said, “The greatest thing my parents ever did for me, besides to love me, was to give me a library card. He is looking forward to his next trip to Virginia and especially to visiting the battlefields at Manassas, We each admitted that when we drive through those fought-over fields and forests as the sun is setting over the Blue Ridge – we see ghosts! And as David pointed out it is almost a duty of each American to visit such sites that were so defined our country.

KAMI COTLER – ELIZABETH WALTON

Of all the Walton actors the one who has the closest association with the area I come from is Kami. For several years after the series was over she taught school in my home county of Nelson. I spoke with her recently and ask for news of her and the family. She replied:

”My family is well. Daughter Callie is 9 and son, Cotton is 12. They are both at the charter school I used to co-direct and now I am on the board of directors. I am working at a charter in Lawndale, Environmental Charter High School, helping them open a middle school. It is a very cool educational program, so I am enjoying it. www.echsonline.org

I have a page on facebook, so people can get info there. Funnily enough, I just posted the story of how I ended up on The Waltons on my page, so fans might find that interesting.

I guess if you want an "update" you can say that I got my teaching credential at UC Berkeley, taught in an school-within-a-school program for at-risk high school students in Nelson, moved back to LA (so my folks could know my kids), taught at a charter school until my Dad got sick in 2002 and then I left to help him with WITFAWN, his boutique travel company/hobby that takes USC football fans to away football games. When Daddy died, I took over WITFAWN. Cotton was in first grade and kept coming home "sick" before recess, so I started looking for a school that wouldn't make him miserable. I ended up finding a group of parents starting an arts-integrated charter school. I volunteered to help and ended up as one of the co-directors. After 3 years there I did some consulting to other start-up charter schools and now I am at Environmental and enjoy my work quite a lot.”

And I should mention that Kami is still fondly remembered in Nelson County, Virginia.

EARL HAMNER – NARRATOR AND BIG BROTHER. Better know as The Old Bear!

When I spoke with David Harper he reminded me to say: “Be sure to express my affection to all those viewers who have been so faithful all these years!” And speaking for David and for the whole Walton “family” I can echo those sentiments.
- - -

Bear Story

Friends and Neighbors:

Here comes a bear story!

We had known for a long time that the bear was there. My father claimed they had once come face to face with each other when he was out hunting quail. My father was given to telling tall tales, and if the story wasn’t exciting enough he was not above supplying additional dramatic details. According to his version the bear was black, weighing three or four hundred pounds, that it was eating apples that had fallen from Old Man Withrow’s orchard, and that the two of them had passed a moment gazing at each other before my father stared him down and the bear disappeared into the woods.

There were other reports from witnesses with less imagination than my father. Owen Goolsby reported sighting bear tracks six and eight inches wide over on Wales Mountain. Cuss Gibbs had watched the bear wade across the Rockfish River down near Power House #l. Virgil Pugh had come across spore behind his barn that might have been bear but he wouldn’t swear to it.

And then came the day when my mother was alone in the house. All her children had left home except for Brother Jim who commuted to his job in Charlottesville and he wouldn’t be home until after dark.

The phone call came from Aunt Dolly Ragland who lived at the end of the country lane that ran in front of our house. Aunt Dolly lived alone and all the neighbors kept a watch over her because she was sometimes given to what the local folk called a touch of “dimension.” There were times when she would get lost in the house she had occupied for seventy five years until some neighbor would stop by and help her find her way home again.

My mother reported that she sounded as if she was trying to keep calm when she said, “Doris, would one of your boys stop by here for a minute? There’ a bear trying to get in my back door.”

With none of her boys at home my mother called to Uncle Donald who had retired from Sears and Roebuck in Charlottesville and who was out spading the garden to plant his early spring peas.

“She’s at it again, huh?” said Donald. “Last time she claimed it was a pole cat under the house.”

“Well, you just never know. Maybe you ought to take a look just in case.”

Donald went in the house and when he came back out he was carrying his 21 gauge shot gun and was followed by his wife, Aunt Alma. There was no way such a modest gun would stop a bear but it was the best Uncle Donald had. If nothing else it would pepper the bear’s behind with birdshot, make a loud noise and frighten him away. Aunt Alma and my mother watched from a distance but they had no clear view of Aunt Dolly’s back door because it faced the other way. They could hear Aunt Dolly shouting and there was fear in her voice so they knew it wasn’t just dimension.

“Watch out, Donnie,” she cried. “He’s just about broke the last plank through.”

Aunt Alma and my mother recalled what happened next. ”We saw Donald raise his gun and fire and then the skinniest, hungriest looking old black bear you can imagine ran away from the house and headed for the Rockfish River.” He had obviously been in hibernation all winter and it was desperation that led him to Aunt Dolly’s house. While Uncle Donald fixed Aunt Dolly’s kitchen door she invited every body in for a glass of buttermilk and the bear was never seen again.

I was reminded of this event recently when I too came out of hibernation. Unlike that old bear I didn’t sleep the winter away. I just spent it driving back and forth to solicitous Beverly Hills doctors who, even in the face of my extreme age, continue to try to piece together the many ailing parts of what I laughingly call my body. I won’t bore you with them except to mention, hoping for maximum sympathy, that the most recent curse I have suffered is with gout of the left knee. Superstition has it that gout is caused by too much red wine, too much rich food and
blood pressure medicine. I am thinking of giving up the blood pressure medicine.

So spring has come again and this old bear is out of the woods. Thanks to the shot Dr. Venturapalli injected into my knee and massive amounts of prednisone the pain has diminished and I can now walk without a cane. One of the other many medications I am taking is causing occasional hallucinations so if you will welcome a crazed old bear with hallucinations back into your life I’d appreciate the chance to get caught up.

First I want to send my sympathy to all you folks in the Midwest and east who have been hammered with all that snow. Many of you have shared photos of the stuff at depths hard to imagine and I have enjoyed the beauty of it without experiencing the inconvenience.

Out here we have had an unusual amount of rain. These severe storms come so rarely that nobody knows what to do. Hardly anyone owns an umbrella or a raincoat and when the drops start falling the natives call one another on the phone and say, “What does one do?” The smart ones move out of their homes if they happen to live below of the fire ravaged mountain slopes where the roads become rivers of mud frequently carrying boulders the size of basketballs. Jane and I live on a hillside, but fortunately the hillside above us is stable.

One of the burdens I want to get off my chest is the guilt I feel because I have not answered your letters.

I swell with pride as I read each one. What outpourings of admiration and gratitude and appreciation you so

generously send. The only way I can accept such adulation is on behalf of the Walton team. We were a remarkable group, every member of the team – actors, writers, directors, executive staff, and a remarkable crew were superior in their field, dedicated to project that each of us loved. Many participants in a television series will say, “We were a family.” On our set it was remarkably true.

So why this guilt? The answer is that there are just more letters than I can respond to. Which is painful to me when they express such sentiments as “Your show changed my life.” “The Waltons are the family I never had.” “The Waltons is the way I wish my family had been.” “Because of the show my daughter intends to become a writer.” ”The show is life transforming.” These are very humbling messages, and I apologize that they have not been answered with a proper response.

So spring has come again! In the east the daffodil and crocus are reaching up through the snow. The dogwood and red bud won’t be far behind. Here in California the magnolias and ornamental pears are in full blossom, the hummingbirds are already nesting, the temperature is in the eighties, and this old bear is out of the woods. I’m energized again. Watching Shaun White defying gravity of his snowboard in Vancouver I considered taking up the sport but Jane talked me out of it.

Many years ago there was a great gang of kids here on our street.. There was a nice kid in the neighborhood named Jeffrey Van Zanten. I was home a lot of the time and often they would include me in whatever games the gang was up to. One day, while I was flailing away at the typewriter, Jeffrey came to the door and asked Jane if Mr. Hamner could come out and play. If any of the kids from the present gang ask Jane to let me out, I’m ready!

So long for now.

Tribute To A Friend

It’s just around the corner! Christmas! Here in Southern California we know it’s on its way because suddenly the leaves of the liquid amber have turned mustard yellow, golden orange, bruised red, speckled green and a gentle brown. Snow is already on the ground up in the Angeles National Forest. Weekend visitors pack it on the top of their SUVs, but it's mostly melted by the time it reaches the downhill suburbs.

The faces of jack o’ lanterns, set out on the curb after Halloween are caving in and collapsing and the images of the Thanksgiving turkey in the windows at schools have been replaced with Christmas Trees and Chanukah candles. It seems that Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer has been playing on the radio since the Fourth of July but now it gives way to more serious Christmas music and in our cars we sing along to “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

Because its daylight savings time we leave our jobs early. Even so darkness is falling by the time we reach home. We live on a country road and the coyote that usually doesn’t show up until after dinner is loping along in search of food. Peaches somehow knows he is there and announces his presence with hysterical barking.

My friends know me and forgive me for becoming sloppily sentimental during the Christmas season. Jane, who suffers the most from my compulsion to write stuff down, looks after me patiently when sometimes late at night , I put on a ratty old bathrobe, grab a Heineken from the refrigerator, and disappear into my office . The bathrobe is a long, brown, ugly garment of some strange but oddly warm comforting material. It is very old and has lengthened as time has passed so that it now almost reaches the floor and the belt has now stretched to such absurd length that it frequently trips me. Jane has threatened to burn it but I hide it when I leave the house and uncover it each night when I feel the need to write coming on.

Tonight I want to write about a very special man in my life. In my fifty years in the entertainment business I have met and worked with many actors. Some of them have faces and names that are known around the world. Others even thought they might have had talent, just never got that break that could lead to fame and fortune. Still I treasure having worked with each and every one and I am proud that most of them I still count as friends.

Actors are a special breed of folks. I once wrote an obituary for a well known actor. I tried to make it a tribute to all actors and so I wrote that actors are born while their parents are appearing on the road in some off Broadway production, that their first cradle is a dresser drawer, that without applause they will wither away and die and that they only come truly alive when the camera is rolling or at 8:30 on Broadway when the curtain rises.

There is one actor who holds a special place in my heart. Will Geer was born a Hoosier and went on to perform on every stage from provincial theaters to Broadway and eventually to a major career in films and television. At one period in his life, paying the price for of his political beliefs, he was blacklisted, unable to find work, and became a gardener, but reason prevailed and he was able to resume his acting career.

Will brought special gifts to the role of Grandma Walton. He was not so much portraying Zebulon Walton – he was just being himself and in that guise he brought humor, depth, empathy, dignity and a credibility to the role that enriched the entire production.

Will and I became good friends and I remember an occasion when I was back in my home county in Virginia to be honored at Earl Hamner Day. I should mention that there had recently been a negative review of The Waltons in which the critic called the show “corny.” Will was to remember the review.

The celebration was held on the football field of the Nelson County High School. My whole family was there. This was back when my mother and all my brothers and sisters were still alive and we were all there. There had been speeches, parades, and awards (I was gifted with a key to the Nelson County jail!) someone dropped from the sky in a parachute and it was all wonderful.

And then a dusty old bus drove into the area and came to a stop in front of the podium. Out stepped Will along with a troop of actors. He had driven all night from Alabama where he was appearing in a play. He was carrying a bushel basket of corn which he had stolen from some farmer’s field down the road. He came up on the podium and presented me with the basket and announced that he just wanted me to know that there was still more corn than concrete in our country.

Wherever he happened to be Will made a garden and it did not take long, once he became a member of the cast, for him to plant a garden on the Walton set. And there in the unlikely setting, a major movie set which had pioneered the industry and produced more than its share of film classics, Will set about raising a crop of onions, peas, squash and tomatoes. And being Will he took care to see that each of the young Walton actors was included in the care of the seedlings once they developed into young plants.

Sometimes he was so full of himself, so exuberant that he would break into spontaneous song without realizing that most music on the show had to be cleared with the publisher and paid for before using it, so we often were charged for Will’s unscripted serenades.

There were other times when at a dinner scene he would be saying grace; With the camera rolling, with the actors waiting for cues that never came, with the director pulling his hair, Will would depart from the script, improvise, extemporize and lengthen the grace until he had properly thanked Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frances Perkins, friends, neighbors and God Himself for the food and fellowship we were about to enjoy.

It was with those memories in mind and with my great love for my friend that I wrote the words that I believe Will would have said on such an occasion.

Grandpa Walton’s’ Christmas Prayer

What is Christmas? It is a time when some of your dreams come true. Every year it rolls around and takes you by surprise some of the time, especially when you’re as close to 100 years old as I am. You think, “It can’t be time for another one,” but here it is with all its hope and joy and the promise of the wishes that might come true.

You’re probably wondering what I wish for. What would an old man wish for? Maybe you think I would wish to be young again. But I don’t yearn for youth any longer. Being young is a painful thing. Being young and in love to boot, which most young people are, is even more agony. I’ll tell you what I wish. I’d wish for the power to return some of the love that’s been given me. I wish the time and place for all that giving could be commemorated like the heart I carved on the tree around your Grandmother’s and my initials. I wish too for more days to my life.

I wish for time - time to help children know some of the beauty of this Earth that has been revealed to me. A drop of water is a wondrous thing. A spade full of earth is a kingdom in itself. A cloud is worth watching as it passes from one horizon to another. A bird building its nest is as wondrous as men building the Pyramid, and any green thing that grows is proof that God exists. It all comes into focus at Christmas.

It is a tender time. We grow cautious because we open ourselves to love. We exchange gifts, but what those presents really say is "I love you." It makes some folks uncomfortable to say or hear these words. Maybe it’s because they’ve never learned the secret of the giving heart. There are more takers than givers in the world. Sadly there are people, communities, even countries spending their time grubbing and rooting for the goods of this earth like pigs after acorns in the fall of the year.

But ours is a country with a giving heart, and I pray it will always be so. It’s a good country and it’s part of our strength, something that we brought with us as pioneers that we can share with the fellow who is down on his luck, with those who suffered calamities: with the loss of their homes or jobs or their hope.

This is a family with a giving heart. You children may squabble and bicker among yourselves, but you’ve been taught to love and to give, and that’s the greatest present your Mamma and Daddy could have given you. So take pleasure in the trappings of Christmas. Be merry like the songs say. Revel in the tinsel and the glitter and the sparkle and sing the old songs for all the joy that’s in them and the memories they bring back. But to touch the real Christmas, to feel the true spirit of the season, look to your own heart and find all the secret treasures that they’re there to give.

There is one wish that I make every year. I never said it aloud before, but I’ll tell it to you now. I wish for all the seasons I have known, endlessly to come and go; the dogwood spring, the watermelon summer, the russet and gold of autumn. I wish for Christmas to come again and for each of us to be here again next year at this time...together, safe, warm, and loved as we are at this moment.

Merry Christmas to one and all!!