Whar's Ben?

The recent passing of Andy Griffith took me back to the summer of 1958 when I received by first real introduction to the man who would in another few years be the namesake of what has become one of television's most endearing series.<br /> <br /> Chances are I had heard Griffith's 1953 recorded stand-up comedy classic "What It Was, Was Football" but the movie "No Time For Sergeants" is what made a lasting impression.<br /> <br /> My brother Edwin and I had gone to Thomasville, Georgia, to spend a week with our Uncle J.R. and Aunt Esten. We lived in Moultrie, about 30 miles up the road from Thomasville and the one thing I fondly recall from that week was the night they took us to see "No Time For Sergeants." At the time it was probably the funniest movie I had ever seen.<br /> <br /> Griffith played Will Stockdale, a backwoods country boy, who was drafted into the Air Force but as the website imdb.com puts it he was "too dumb to realize he's driving everyone around him crazy." By the way, if you, like me, have never heard of anyone being drafted into the Air Force, there is apparently a reason. According to airforcemagazine.com "...the Air Force has never used the draft." Maybe the forerunner to the Air Force, the Army Air Corps, did during World War II but apparently not the Air Force. Just another movie taking liberties with the facts, I guess. <br /> <br /> The movie, of course, centered around Stockdale's adventures and misadventures in the service and is said to have been the inspiration for "Gomer Pyle, USMC," a spin off of "The Andy Griffith Show" which debuted on CBS-TV in the early 1960s starring Jim Nabors. <br /> <br /> The movie even featured Don Knotts, who gained fame as Griffith's bumbling deputy, Barney Fife, in the television series, but Knotts played a minor role compared to that of Nick Adams who appeared as fellow service member Ben Whitledge, Griffith's best friend and buddy. Whitledge worked hard at trying to make Griffith's character fit in. I don't know how many times he said it, maybe only once, it seems to was a lot more than that, but the line from the movie that has stuck with me all these years was Griffith's "Where's Ben?" uttered, however, in that familiar Griffith Southern drawl and sounding more like "Whar's Ben?"<br /> <br /> For me, "No Time For Sergeants" was the shining moment of the summer of 1958 and my formal introduction to a man whose comedy I still enjoy today.<br /> <br /> Thank you, Uncle J.R. and Aunt Esten.<br /> <br /> <I>(Ken Stanford is a Contributing Editor and retired longtime Newsroom Manager for WDUN NEWS TALK 550, WDUN-FM 102.9, 1240 ESPN Radio and AccessNorthGa.com.)<I>