Barney Fife Day (And My Birthday)
By John J. Duncan Jr.
The date this column is published (July 21), I will have my 78th birthday. I call it Barney Fife Day because several years ago, I got a big kick out of it when I found this was also Don Knotts’ birthday (although he was a few years older).
Barney Fife has to be the greatest character ever created for a television show. I have many favorite episodes of “The Andy Griffith Show,” such as when Barney tells Andy he can recite the preamble to the Constitution.
Another is when Gomer Pyle and Barney are on the roof of the courthouse, and they spot the bad guys. Gomer says, “Shazam, we’d better call the police!” Since Gomer had been deputized, Barney angrily replies, “We are the police!”
Don Knotts is no longer with us, except through very popular reruns. But I am alive and very thankful to still be here.
A few weeks ago, I was about to start a round of golf with Sam Anderson, Dr. James Foster and Gene Wolfenbarger. Gene’s birthday is also on July 21, and he told me he would be 62 and then asked how old I would be.
When I told him I would be 78, Sam very nicely said, “You get around better than any 78-year-old I have ever seen.” I sometimes hit my first drive of the day straight until I get loose and start hooking and slicing. That day I luckily hit a beautiful, long drive straight down the middle, and Sam exclaimed, “Boy, I can’t wait ‘til I’m 78 so I can hit a drive like that!”
When I was talking to my oldest granddaughter, Emma, at my son, Zane’s, wedding party several years ago, I said, “Emma, one of the happiest days of my life will be when I get to come to your wedding.” She was seven years old then, and she said, “Oh, Papa, you couldn’t do that. You would be dead.”
Emma is 21 now, and is a very beautiful, personable young woman, but not married yet. I still hope to be here for her wedding.
I retired 6½ years ago, primarily because my late wife, Lynn, had suffered two strokes and was in a wheelchair, and then later came down with cancer. Her last three years were very difficult, and I needed to be home.
But I also retired because I look at the obituaries every day, and I started noticing a few years ago that about half the men listed in the obituaries were younger than me. I traveled by plane almost every week, and I did not want to die rushing through an airport, or in Washington, away from my family.
I know that I am very lucky to still be here, and even more so because I am still able to do almost everything I have always done.
Like everyone, I have had many problems and difficulties, and many bad things have happened to me and members of my family. But the good things have far outweighed the bad.
Ray Hill, a fellow Focus columnist, told me many years ago that I won the lottery with parents. I had never thought of it that way, but I was blessed with a really wonderful mother and father.
I have been blessed in too many ways to count. As a young man, I hoped someday to get married and have children. That dream came true, and now I even have grandchildren.
When Lynn died, I never expected to get married again, but almost a year later, I was surprised by the joy of a second marriage when Vickie came into my life. We have now been very happily married for over three years.
I have been blessed by the leadership, guidance and love from five very strong women: my mother, my sisters (Beverly and Becky), and my two wives, Lynn and Vickie.
When I was a small boy, I told people I wanted to be a lawyer like my Dad. When I graduated from law school in 1973, if someone had told me I would get to spend 16 years as a lawyer and judge, and 30 years in Congress, I probably wouldn’t have believed it. I would have said, “Where do I sign up?”
None of it has been easy. My Dad told me that everything looks easy from a distance. I know that everyone gets hurt by life, and I certainly have been many times in many ways. But I try not to dwell on bad things.
My biggest dreams have all come true, and my life has turned out far better than I ever hoped or expected. I have been helped, especially in tough times, by prayer. I am not holier than thou, and I try to work on my faith every day.
I start off every day with a long morning prayer for me and my family. Because of something I read years ago, I try to make my prayers focused more on thanking than asking.
At least since 1978, I have read the Daily Guideposts brief Bible study – one current and one from years ago. As I wrote most of this column, one of the Guideposts stories mentioned Galatians 5:22. While I have many other favorite verses, that verse comes close to summing up what I have tried to say on this day: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.”
