It's a good thing there are no lawbreakers in heaven.
Now that the best crime-fighting duo in the history of the world has been reunited, they would stand no chance.
I am a huge Andy Griffith fan. His passing was sad, but it also gave me a perfectly reasonable chance to discuss all of my favorite television shows in which he starred.
I could take or leave "Matlock" and "Mayberry RFD," but the original black-and-white "The Andy Griffith Show" from five decades ago contains some of the best television shows ever made.
Sheriff Andy Taylor and his faithful deputy, Barney Fife – played by Don Knotts, who died several years ago - were only characters on a show. But sometimes the line between Andy Griffith and Andy Taylor got a little blurred.
Most people love the show. But few really get it.
So many people get stuck on the country=fried humor of Barney Fife and his one bullet in his pocket, Otis the town drunk, Ernest T. Bass and the musical hillbillies, the Darlin family, that they miss the great messages the show delivered so well without a preachy tone or condescending voice.
But even those who received the message sometimes missed the overall narrative. But staying true to the characters and telling their story throughout each script is what allowed the show to penetrate the living rooms of Southerners, Northerners and everyone in between.
The reason Griffith's Sheriff Andy Taylor character is so popular is not because he is a superhero who always swoops in to save the day. His popularity is derived from how the day is saved.
Whenever there was credit to be shared, Sheriff Taylor always earned his fair share but deflected the praise to his goofy deputy. Barney Fife was always the face on the front page of the Mayberry Gazette, and it was his name in the headlines.
Sheriff Taylor was also not afraid to be wrong.
He dealt with issues of trust.
When his son Opie told him about a magical-sounding man in the trees who was giving him gifts, Sheriff Taylor assumed the worst about his son.
His son had a fanciful imagination, and he just knew that Mr. McBeevee was a figment of that imagination being used to allow his son to steal.
When it all came to a head, Andy was forced to believe in his son when all evidence said he should punish him.
"You don't believe in Mr. McBeevee, do ya Andy?" his deputy asked.
"No," Sheriff Taylor answered. "But I do believe in Opie."
Of course, it turned out that Mr. McBeevee was real and worked on power lines being installed through the woods.
But Andy wasn't always the perfect father.
Like most of dads, he dealt with the issue of pride.
As the head of the Underprivileged Children's Fund donation campaign, Sheriff Taylor was embarrassed that his own son was the least generous in his class at school.
He confronts Opie about it only to find out that he was going to buy a gift for a little girl.
Sheriff Taylor was horrified. His young son was already squandering money on the ladies.
Of course, Opie was saving money to buy a winter coat for one of those underprivileged kids.
Andy's pride about heading up the charity event clouded his view of his own son. Once again, Andy was left to apologize to Opie for not believing in him and his good intentions.
Would Opie's mother have reacted this way? Perhaps. But these were just a small sampling of the number of times we could sense Andy needing his wife who had passed away. The theme of the single father was central to many of the storylines that on the surface appeared to be downhome country fun.
Perhaps the most famous episode is Opie the Birdman. Anyone reading this column knows about this episode.
Maybe you are thinking about the tough love Andy gave Opie when – after discovering that Opie had slain a mother bird with his new slingshot – Andy raised the window so his young son could truly feel the pain his thoughtless actions had caused by listening to the baby birds chirping for their mother though a sleepless night.
It made me wonder how many sleepless nights Andy had endured as his son cried for the mother that never would return.
Others remember the incredible reaction when Opie didn't get mired in depression, but instead took action. He was up with the sun mixing up bird feed for the orphaned fledglings.
Didn't Andy do the same thing? Instead of remarrying, he brought his aunt to live with them and help around the house. He took full parenting responsibilities of his son and did his best.
Then when the birds reached the proper age, Opie was able to set them free.
But I doubt you caught the deeper meaning in the release. It wasn't that the birds flew away.
Sure, that was nice.
But the exchange between Andy and Opie before the release told the metanarrative of the entire series.
After Andy reassured Opie that the mother who had died would have wanted him to release the birds so they could be free, Opie said, "But I can't Pa. I just can't."
Andy said, "Remember you took over this job because they lost their ma? There is one more thing that she would've done. She would have let 'em go to be on their own and let 'em be free like they was intended to be."
"But what if they can't fly away? Maybe I didn't do all the right things on account of I wasn't really their ma," Opie worried.
"You did all the right things," Andy reassured him.
It seems like a conversation about birds going free.
But Andy took over the job of raising Opie when his mother died. How many times did he worry that he "wasn't doing all the right things"? After all, he "wasn't really (Opie's) ma."
The writers didn't pound the viewers over the head with the single-father theme, but it was the overriding force in so many of the storylines.
The show was simple enough for a child to enjoy, but the ideas covered were illustrative of everyday life, and that is why the show appealed to such a broad audience.
Andy Griffith will be missed. But we should all be so lucky as to touch so many people in a positive way during our lives.
Kent Bush is publisher of the Augusta (Kan.) Gazette.
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