The Waltons, should I?

 I think I must have been one of the few people who never saw an episode of ‘The Waltons.’

I kind of knew what it was about. I knew about the “Goodnight John-Boy...” endings because so many people used to say about them.

I know it ran for almost 10 years but only because today, I watched a documentary about the programme. It ran for over 200 episodes.

The main reason I don’t think I watched it was because my parents didn’t. I was 12 when it started and for most of the year, we were open in the evenings with our arcade and so it wasn’t something we watched when it started.

And I assume that because we didn’t see it at the beginning, my parents never bothered with it afterwards. It wasn’t like today when you could catch up. I just figure it wasn’t for them.

And as the years go by, it never really interested me because from what I heard about it, it was a bit schmaltzy, and as I teen, I didn’t want to appear as someone who’d watch something like that.

It was going to be Kojack, Starsky and Hutch or Hawaii  5-0, something that a teenage boy was going to find exciting.

And that didn’t change in later years either because whenever I heard people say that it was being repeated on the telly, I just laughed and said there’s no way I be watching that!

I was the same way about shows like ‘Little House On The Prairie.’ As much as I liked ‘Little Joe’ on ‘Bonanza,’ I wasn’t watching that.

And as you may be able to tell, I spent the next years avoiding any program like that if it appeared on our screens, nostalgic twaddle that it was.

But it’s funny how time changes us.

Last year during the lockdown, we were looking talking about things we used to watch when we were younger and Debz started telling me about ‘Anne Of Green Gables’ and how much she’d liked it.

I was online looking to buy some DVDs to watch. I like collect box sets. I’m not one to want to buy or rent and stream series. I’d rather have the physical DVDs. After all, if the place where you stream them from drops the programmes or films, even if you’ve paid for them, they’re gone.

Besides that, a lot of the streaming sites don’t have the things I want to see – or they’re as much to stream as I could buy the DVDs for. I digress.

Anyway, I looked for ‘Anne Of Green Gables’ as I thought Debz would like to see it again. I found it, purchased it and a few days later, it arrived.

I knew Debz was going to love it, but I was expecting to be bored out of my brains watching it.

I couldn’t have been more wrong! It turns out that I quite like a schmaltzy, wholesome programme. I didn’t realise that there’s something nice about a feel-good innocent hour of viewing.

I found myself looking forward to seeing the next episode. And by the end of the series, I was hooked.

I then went looking for the follow up to ‘Anne Of Green Gables’ and came across ‘Anne of Avonlea,’ which I enjoyed as well.

Either, these were much better than I imagined they would be, or I’ve changed as a person as I’ve got older. It’s probably a combination of both because I can remember a time I wouldn’t have watched if you’d paid me.

And then via Netflix, we discovered ‘Anne With An E.’ Once again another excellent series.

And that brings us to where I find myself today.

Yes I still love my cop shows, I still love a whodunit, I still like a good political drama but now I’ve fallen for these shows that I sometimes watch and find myself gulping and wiping a tear away as I get engrossed.

I’m now thinking that perhaps if I can find the DVDs, it’s time to find out about ‘The Waltons.’

In these times we find ourselves living in, watched some innocent, heart-warming and uplifting telly isn’t such a bad thing.

I’ve found that now I’m getting a taste for shows like this and ‘The Darling Buds Of May.’

I’m not sure it’s going my ‘street cred’ any good though!

Thanks for reading. If you like this blog and want to support it, sign up for the newsletter and feel free to invite your friends along to check out the blog, because after all, the more, the merrier!