If all the TVs were all transported far beyond the northern sea, I wouldn’t care one whit, as my granny would say.

I’m not sure when I saw the first “television set” but it was in the window of a furniture store in Eufaula. We were visiting my aunt and uncle and the thoughtful storeowner turned the television set to the outside at night so all the townspeople could come and watch it “snow.”

Some time, probably years later, my grandparents got a console television. On Saturday nights, all the family would gather in the living room to watch the “Hit Parade” with our granny’s favorite singers, Snooky Lanson and Gisele MacKenzie, that she called G-zell. We would be on pins and needles waiting to find out the number one tune of the week.

“Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” was number one for a long time. My cousin Net and I learned it by heart. I played it on the trumpet and she sang. We could have been on the “Hit Parade” ourselves.

We also liked Liberace with all those candles on the piano and Lawrence Welk with all the bubbles. We wondered how much soap it took to get all those bubbles going. But when rastlin’ came on, we forgot about everything else on television. Gorgeous George was our granny’s favorite and ours. Some ‘rastler’ beat Gorgeous George and he had to have his curly, gold locks cut off. He wasn’t as gorgeous anymore.

When Daddy bought us a table top TV, I gave up rastlin’ for “As the World Turns,” which Mama and I got hooked on when we visited Aunt Eleanor who had a television. Daddy said we didn’t go to Eufaula to see Aunt Eleanor. We went to watch television.

I fell in love with Ricky Nelson along with a million other teenage girls. I don’t even remember the name of the show he was on. I just remember Ricky Nelson.

After my teenage years, I pretty much gave up television.

The only television shows I watch today are the re-runs of “The Waltons” and “The Andy Griffith Show.” For a while, the shows were all new to me because I didn’t watch them when they were in their prime. I’ve seen every episode of “The Waltons” and “Ange” more times than I have fingers, toes, ears and a nose. But, I continue to watch them because the Waltons still put a lump in my throat, and Andy, a giggle in my heart.

Other than those shows, I don’t even keep the television on for noise. I’d rather listen to John Denver or Peter, Paul and Mary on the boom box. But I have a friend who is primed and ready to alert me if a catastrophe is a-comin’.

However, this week my daughter and a host of friends sent me giggle-grams about my utopia, Mayberry U.S.A., where living is slow and easy and happiness is a continuous state of being.

And, the reason is because nobody in Mayberry is married.

Think about it, none of them are married, not Andy, Aunt Bea, Clara, Barney, Helen, Thelma Lou, Howard, Floyd, Gomer, Goober and none of the Darlings, not papa Brisco, daughter Charlene, or any of the Darling boys.

The only regular on the show that is married is Otis Campbell and he stays drunk all the time.

Even after all these years and all those re-runs, The Andy Griffith Show still give us reason to laugh and a reason to watch TV.