Lunch with The Waltons: Finding Comfort Among Old Friends
By: Tina L. Smith
Tags: Mental Health, TV Series, Culture, Lifestyle, Remote Working

PANDEMIC COPING

Lunch with The Waltons: Finding Comfort Among Old Friends

PS: Don’t call between 12 and 1

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Thanks to an unprecedented worldwide health emergency, most of us haven’t hugged a friend in nine months. Or been in the same room with extended family or co-workers. Or attended a wedding, a funeral, or a party to share joys and sorrows.

Many of us are feeling a void. A need for human connection.

Shhhh…don’t tell

I don’t tell many people because they’d likely find it funny or pitiable. But here it is: I watch The Waltons reruns five days a week at noon as a way to cope. Religiously. Fervently. And on days I can’t watch it, I record it to savor later.

Go ahead and snicker. I deserve it.

I fell into the habit early in my pandemic work-from-home regimen. Grilled cheese and ‘70s family programming during my lunch break were just what I needed to adjust to a new, more solitary work day. ’Twas salve for the soul grieving interaction with the outside world. Cheesy, predictable plot lines set in a simple time with kindhearted, wise characters solving life-and-death problems in 48 minutes. Swoon.

The oldies TV station plays the series — all 221 episodes over nine seasons — sequentially. Which means, nine months into this routine, I have yet to see a rerun and I enjoy fresh anticipation each weekday.

It wasn’t supposed to last

The Waltons original run began in 1972 and continued to 1982. The series was developed in half-hearted response to congressional hearings on television programming and an implied encouragement for more “family-friendly” entertainment. CBS network executives didn’t expect it to catch on and even slotted it against high-ratings programming on other networks so that it would not linger. (My family must have watched the other shows, because I don’t remember seeing much of the Walton family.)

1972 promotional photo for The Waltons TV show. Photo credit: CBS Television

To their surprise, the homey, rose-colored stories of a large, rural family surviving the Great Depression struck a chord with viewers, and it became a popular series in its first season.

The cast of mostly unknown actors gained quick renown, with Richard Thomas (John-boy Walton, the eldest child) an easy standout. It wasn’t long before TV and movie producers tried to woo him to other projects, finally succeeding after five seasons.

But the series continued on another four years without Thomas, owing to strong viewer loyalty and a strong ensemble cast of well-developed characters.

Does this obsession with a 40+-year-old series make me look old?

I’ve often rolled my eyes at people who are stuck in the past. You know the sort…the 65-year-old sporting a mullet and still talking about that Led Zeppelin concert he went to when he was 17, or the octogenarian savoring Frank Sinatra tunes, over and over and over.

The world is a big place with exciting new things happening all the time. New music, new movies, new technology. Getting stuck in the past is a quick way to get old, I’ve always reasoned.

When you have kids, you get dragged along through pop culture changes and manage to stay tuned in to what’s popular with their generation. Even though my kids are pretty much out of the nest, I still get cultural infusions from them, thank goodness. You know, it’s just part of what makes me a “cool mom.” Or at least that’s what I tell them for a laugh.

Yet, I now find myself mired in a 1970s telling of 1930–40s Americana, which is sort of a double-whammy for “old.” And, silly or not, I love it.

I’ve cried with the practically perfect Virginia family over the attack on Pearl Harbor. I’ve laughed at Grandpa’s lovable antics. I’ve grinned through various Walton’s Mountain weddings. I’ve even longed to sip a bit of the Baldwin Sisters’ famed “recipe.”