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Post by runhard on Mar 1, 2023 12:48:06 GMT -5
In Spencer's Mountain Henry Fonda's Clay Spencer didn't go to church either preferring to relax in his hammock until making a deal with the new Reverend to help Clay Boy with his Latin studies. Earl wrote both Clay and John that way and I've always believed that both were never one's for church but that as John Boy through Earl in his monologue said about John, "that the revival was looked forward to by everyone except his father." In The Baptism (a favorite episode of mine too) Esther and Zeb argue because she points out that if he had "insisted John go the Christian way that both her and Livy wouldn't be going through this now." So by that bit of dialogue one has to believe that John was always like that when it came to church. If anything it's refreshing that John leaves it up to his children to make up their own mind much like the teaching of Jesus that I remember from 13 years of Catholic school that we were given free will to make our own choice. If anything John Walton was a very good man who loved his family and practiced and lived by the golden rule of love thy neighbor. In my opinion that's what's more important.
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Post by Easton on Mar 1, 2023 12:54:15 GMT -5
^ They were both the same character as were the rest of the family. Spencer's Mountain came out first in the theatres but when Earl wanted to take it to television with 'The Homecoming: A Christmas Story', Warner Brothers wouldn't allow him to use the names. He changed Spencer to Walton, Clay to John, and Clay-Boy to John-Boy. Same characters, different names.
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Post by Emmy on Mar 15, 2023 15:25:51 GMT -5
I would think as young boys both John and Benjamin would have gone to church every Sunday with a mom like Esther Walton. John probably stopped going to church once he went off to WWI and then once he came back all the things that went on in the war changed his mind about how he would deal with religion and his faith. It was a similar situation with Erin's boyfriend Ashley Longworth Jr. , but not exactly. John Walton Sr. still has faith in God while Ashley Longworth Jr. loses his faith completely.
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Post by Easton on Mar 15, 2023 16:45:58 GMT -5
^ "By George, she's got it. I think she's got it!"
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Post by Emmy on Mar 17, 2023 12:14:20 GMT -5
I have never experienced PTSD like John Walton Sr, Ashley Longworth Sr, and Curtis Willard, but I guess when you do experience something like that you can take two different paths. You can either totally grasp onto a faith or become completely angry with it and against it like Ashley Longworth Jr. did. John Walton Sr. didn't completely become angry with God and his faith, but there were times when he said he just didn't know what the answers were or how to explain things. With Curt, it was a bit different. His issue was with himself and this is why I really never fully understood his situation as much as I did as John Sr's and Ashley Longworth Jr's. Curt abandoned everything he had, family and being a doctor because of a medical issue he had. It didn't make any sense, especially with him being a doctor. With Curt though I could see how war changed his personality a bit, but to the extreme of leaving everything behind because of what the show made it out to be a medical issue with him was just stupid.
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