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Post by Marilyn on Nov 13, 2010 23:20:32 GMT -5
Moe, what's your snow total now?
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kaleigh
Typesetter
"Old fool, young fool"
Posts: 71
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Post by kaleigh on Nov 14, 2010 15:24:11 GMT -5
Hi Coalminerswife85--
I don't really have a medical diagnosis other than 50% hearing loss in one ear which I was born with. I do have periods when I feel depressed & lonely, and watching the Walton's helps me to feel better! I always wanted to have a big family with lots of brothers & sisters ( I have one younger sister). I also think I was meant to live in a time period that was more simple. Society has become so complicated with technology and fast-paced environment. Although the depression era was a difficult time, to me it didn't seem to have the same stress we have today, especially when you had loving friends and family like they do in the Walton's. This is why I enjoy the Walton's!
Marilyn- I can't believe how much snow you have!! Look's beautiful!
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Post by lorijean on Nov 14, 2010 15:57:11 GMT -5
The show does seem to have a calming feel to it. When I have a stress filled day or week in this fast paced world we live in, I look forward to coming home and excaping the worries of the day. Just hearing the theme song does it!..............  |
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Post by dfnmeows44 on Nov 16, 2010 12:09:05 GMT -5
I watched tapes of the episodes prior to my open heart surgery in March,2002
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Post by coalminerswife85 on Nov 16, 2010 18:53:50 GMT -5
just got out of MRI's at UVA really tired and not feeling so great from the dye, laying here in our hotel room watching the grandchild, so I'm feeling some better just waiting on friday to go to the alton museum...YAY!!!!!!! It's amazing what a calming effect the waltons can have on a person.
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Post by davidm on Nov 19, 2010 4:05:28 GMT -5
I grew up in an extremely abusive family. One of the most difficult thing for me to accept was a father who loved his children and was tender with them. Seeing all the siblings getting along even though they had their fights. Those were the things that attracted me to the show. Now I've been diagnosed with cancer, and when I watch the show and see the love the family members have for each other I cry sometimes wishing my own family could have been like that.
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bucky
Reporter
Posts: 271
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Post by bucky on Nov 19, 2010 14:34:55 GMT -5
davidm - I think a lot of us look at the Walton's and compare our own lives to them. No family is perfect though. I think Earl Hamner put on his rose-coloured glasses when he wrote about his family, which isn't to say he was making it up, but that the happy times were what he remembered. Didn't his sister remark that Walton's Mountain existed somewhere in his imagination? I've met some pretty good fathers - my own was one of them - but I've never known anyone as perfect as John Walton. The writer had the wise and loving father down pat, but, and I hope I'm not upsetting anyone, I don't really believe that's a true characterization. It's nice to watch though. It'd be wonderful if we could all handle problems with such equanimity. Your own experience is all too common and must be hard to look back on. I know all kinds of things resonate when you're ill. Take care.
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Post by Marilyn on Nov 19, 2010 15:27:08 GMT -5
My upbringing was far from perfect too, and I could easily blame my family and say that it caused some problems in my life, but I'm not going to do that. I've mentioned this before, but it's worth saying again - We are products of our past, but not prisoners of our past. Keep telling yourself that, because it's a fact. Some people hold grudges over their past and it's like a ball and chain around their ankle and affects every aspect of their life. They even allow it to affect others, and that's not fair. I agree with bucky about the rose-colored glasses. I can look back on my upbringing two ways, with negativity or with rose-colored glasses. I choose the glasses!
Did you know that Ralph Waite said that before he started the Walton's series, he was a heavy drinker and had little or nothing to do with his kids. He said that the Walton's script and actors wake him up and caused him to take a good look at himself and his role as a father. He then took it upon himself to change his ways. We can do the same. Shake loose the ball and chain and learn from the Waltons. I know that I have learned alot from the Waltons and it has deeply affected my role as a parent. We have six kids and I am deeply grateful for the Waltons. They are perfect in my mind and are my fantasy family. It feels good to watch them and get lost in them. I will continue to do so!
Forgiveness for our not-so-perfect upbringing is so important in our health and every day relationships with others. We can emulate the Waltons if we put a mind to it!
I want to add that my Grandma Baker looked just like Grandma Walton, dressed like her, same body size, same pasty colored skin, same hair style, everything...and she was just as snarly as Grandma Walton. She was far from perfect! She was blessed to be married to a man that looked, sounded and acted just like Zeb Walton. He even wore the same kind of clothes! I adored my Grandpa Baker. He was the perfect one in the family, if there is such a thing! 
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Post by davidm on Nov 21, 2010 10:31:52 GMT -5
From everything I've read and heard Clay Spencer (Spencer's Mountain) is a more accurate portrayal of Earl Hamner Sr. than John Walton Sr. It seems that Olivia is a pretty accurate portrayal of Doris Hamner. I don't see the Waltons as sappy, if you pay attention to the shows they have tempers, they have fights, John Boy can be quite a lustful lad when it comes to the ladies, Even fights between Erin and Mary Ellen over a bloke. At the time this series is portrayed, the 1930s Great Depression, folks generally were better behaved than we are now. There was a certain amount of respect and decency we no longer possess today, and the show brings those qualities out. I think it helps make us miss them.
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Post by davidm on Nov 21, 2010 10:38:18 GMT -5
I won't get into the details of my family, I'll just give a recent example. My older sister swore I would never be free from my family. I finally left Maryland and moved to Kentucky. She made friends with a policeman near where she lives to have him abuse his authority to find me. He was abusive so I went to the sheriff here who contacted the police force in Maryland. The Maryland policeman stopped harassing me. To quote doctors, nurses and aids at the hospital my mom spent most of her last year at, "We've seen it all......, but we've never seen a family like your's! How did you survive growing up in that family?"
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Post by bmcgill on Nov 21, 2010 11:36:20 GMT -5
davidm. I think you did the right thing by moving completely away from the bad part of your family. I did that three and a half years ago and the small town gossip that I lived in and it is one of the best things I ever did. That is pretty extreme for your sister to keep trying to bother you all the way from Maryland to Kentucky. I won't go into the details of my family either but I know where you are coming from. We had to block out their e-mails and phone numbers. I was told by a professional to divorce them, so I did. Although I did get a Christmas card last year from one of my sisters with all kinds of terrible things written all over it. Everybody is different. Some people might be able to just shake off a bad childhood and look at the good and I do try to remember the good but it has affected my adult life. Sounds almost like an obsession with your older sister to go to that extreme. I just try to take things on day at a time and avoid as much stress as I can, which is something that I don't deal with anymore like I use to. Yes, I love The Waltons because it takes me back to the good times of my childhood. My Dad grew up and lived during the depression and he was the more loving parent. I remember going down to his old home place when I was very young and it looked a lot like what you see on The Waltons. Back in the middle of no where. The show also takes me back to my childhood when I was too young to know what problems were. Riding my bicycle all over the place, playing in the chicken house and hog pin, trying to ride the pigs. We were real country bumpkins. That was the good and funny part of my childhood that The Waltons reminds me of so that is a lot of why I love the show so much.
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Post by Marilyn on Nov 21, 2010 13:05:41 GMT -5
I won't get into the details of my family, I'll just give a recent example. My older sister swore I would never be free from my family. I finally left Maryland and moved to Kentucky. She made friends with a policeman near where she lives to have him abuse his authority to find me. He was abusive so I went to the sheriff here who contacted the police force in Maryland. The Maryland policeman stopped harassing me. To quote doctors, nurses and aids at the hospital my mom spent most of her last year at, "We've seen it all......, but we've never seen a family like your's! How did you survive growing up in that family?" I'm confused here...." She made friends with a policeman near where she lives to have him abuse his authority to find me. He was abusive so I went to the sheriff here who contacted the police force in Maryland. The Maryland policeman stopped harassing me. " What does that mean? |
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Post by dfnmeows44 on Nov 22, 2010 18:54:55 GMT -5
On both sides of my family there has been a split of some kind. On my mother's side there were
three sisters. One was left with the burden of taking care of my grandmother when she already had
her husbands mother and aunt to take care of. It came to a head when my grandmother died at the end of
August,1965. After that the three sisters were out of touch with one another. I was the only one who
kept in touch with them. Finally when my mother became ill in 1984 the younger sister made an effort to
reconcile with the oler sister(my mother was the middle sister) but the older sister was so embittered that
she rejected the overture.
My dad had a sister and two brothers. The Sister died in 1980. The younger brother who had three children
had set up a trust for the childen in 1964 to be split three ways after the death of both he and his
wife. The problem was the wife lived for 14 years after her husband and there was a stipulaton that
after 10 yrars any one of the childen could ask for a portion. The youngest child did and did not pay the
trust back. When the mother died 3 years later the balance in the trust which had been sizeable before
was much smaller and one of them, whose husband had developed health problems, needed the money. It
ended up that she became bad friends with her brother and the other son was so upset over the bickering
that he does not want to be considered a member of the family any more.
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