[gentle orchestral fanfare]

♪

[resonant strings lead
building orchestration]

(male narrator)
Welcome to Our State ,

a production of UNC-TV

in association
with Our State magazine--

for over 80 years,

bringing readers
the wonders of North Carolina.

On this edition...

(Andy Griffith)
And what I seen--

(narrator)
...illustrator Rich Powell
draws new life

out of Andy Griffith's
classic monologue...

(Griffith)
Lookin' at one other

across this pretty,
little, green cow pasture--

[audience laughing]

(narrator)
...Letters From Home,

honoring veterans with music
and dance from a bygone era...

♪ Callin' me, callin' me
to my old mountain home ♪

(narrator)
...and the Lonesome Road Band

serves up an earworm

inspired by a North Carolina
mountain childhood.

♪ I was
born ♪

♪ Down
in North Carolina ♪

[group harmonizing]
♪ Blue Ridge Mountains ♪

♪ I call home ♪

[old-time arrangement
concludes]

♪

[gentle piano melody]

(male announcer)
Since 1872,

BB&T has been supporting

the people and communities
of North Carolina.

From our small-town roots

to the banking network
you see today,

we've always been here
for all our clients,

stretching from Manteo...

to Murphy.

We're proud of our heritage

as the oldest bank
in North Carolina,

and we're very proud
to provide funding

for Our State .

♪

Quality public television
is made possible

through the financial
contributions

of viewers like you,

who invite you to join them
in supporting UNC-TV.

[placid acoustic guitar score]

[accordion supports guitar]

♪

(narrator)
Meet Rich Powell,

an illustrator
with an imagination

that never seems
to take a rest.

His daydreams
end up on greeting cards,

in newspaper comics,
on T-shirts,

even in Mad magazine.

Some are lifelike,

and some have
the tongue-in-cheek whimsy

he's become known for.

(Rich)
I would say,

it's more of an offbeat
sense of humor,

really kind of
a slapstick thing.

I'm no Mark Twain
as far as the writing goes--

heh.

(narrator)
In time, he left
his native New Jersey

and eventually
found our state,

where he settled in Asheboro
and poured himself

a healthy dose
of Southern culture.

(Rich)
When I got here,

I started drawing cartoons
for the local papers.

Originally, the first cartoons

were about humor that related
to the Southern experience.

Started going
to a local coffee shop

every morning to see
a group of fellas there.

They had
a great sense of humor,

and they gave me
so much material.

Growin' up here,
if you had a cut,

kerosene'll cure everything,
or they smoke this stuff

called rabbit tobacco
I'd never heard of

and chiggers
an

d all of these things.

There was so much material

that it was easy.

You could come up with a gag
by goin' for a walk.

When the pollen comes down
here, it's so ridiculous!

Definitely have to do
a pollen cartoon.

So it's good to draw
what you know,

and what I knew
at the time was,

I was getting used
to living in the South.

♪

We have a wonderful
antique mall downtown,

and on the wall

was the record
from Andy Griffith,

"What It Was,
Was Football."

I didn't know about it

until I moved
to North Carolina.

(narrator)
Long before
The Andy Griffith Show

made him a household name,

Andy wrote
and began performing

a whimsical essay
after his graduation

from Chapel Hill in 1949.

"What It Was, Was Football"
is the tale of a man

who didn't know
a football game

from a glass of sweet tea

when he arrived unbeknownst
at the site of one

and got swept up
in all the enthusiasm.

(Rich)
It was a pretty
unique record, you know?

It wasn't George Carlin,
you know?

It was a comedy record
you could get for your family.

Everybody could sit
and listen to it

and get a kick out of it.

(narrator)
Andy's down-home style

and his description
of that fortunate dilemma

was endearing to listeners
and started him on the road

to becoming
a true national treasure

when "What It Was,
Was Football"

was first released in 1953.

So here's what we've got:

Andy Griffith, storyteller

of Southern idiosyncrasies
par excellence

and Rich Powell, illustrator

of Southern idiosyncrasies
par excellence.

Uh-huh, sounds like
a natural fit to me.

[accordion concludes piece]

(Rich)
Andy was a very tough
character to draw.

With Andy
being like the 13th apostle

in North Carolina,
I was pretty nervous

about getting Andy right
but not just do

the perfect shot
of Andy Griffith.

You know, it has to look
like my style of cartooning.

[acoustic guitar groove]

(Griffith, Southern accent)
It was back last October,
I believe it was.

We was a-gonna hold
a tent service off--

off at this college town,

and we got thair
about dinnertime on Saturday.

(Rich)
Well, you have
to pare that down.

You gotta pick what part
of that you can draw.

It took place in the '50s,
and it was North Carolina.

You really had to think back
to the older days.

When you're done
with that first sketch,

you just like it;
it has life and energy to it.

(Griffith)
And different ones of us

thought that we
ought to get us

a mouthful to eat before
that we set up the tent.

And so we got off the truck

and followed
this little bunch of people

through this small, little
bitty patch of woods there,

and we come up on a big sign.

It says,
"Get somethin' to eat c'here."

And, uh, I went up
and got me two hot dogs

and a Big Orange drink,

and before that I could take
ary mouthful of that food,

this whole raft of people
come up around me

and got me to where I couldn't
eat nothing up like,

and I dropped
my Big Orange drink.

I did.

Well, friends,
they commenced to move,

and there warn't so much
that I could do

but move with 'em.

Well, we commenced to go
through all kinds of doors

and gates
and I don't know what all,

and I looked up
over one of 'em,

and it says
"North Gate."

And we kept on a-goin'
through there,

and pretty soon,
we come up on a young boy,

and he says,
"Ticket, please."

And I says, "Friend,
I don't have a ticket.

I don't even know
where it is that I'm a-goin'!"

[audience laughing]

I did.

(Rich)
So we will get the whole story
in one picture.

We'll have the ticket boy.

We'll have him
being swept along,

and we'll fill it full
of all sorts of crazy stuff...

people's legs
and arms stickin' out.

In the old Mads,
they'd stick a lotta stuff

like that in there
and call it "chicken fat."

So we'll throw
as much chicken fat in there

as possible,
make it as funny as possible.

(Griffith)
Well, he says, "Come out
as quick as you can."

And I says, "I'll do 'er.

I'll turn right around
the first chance't I get."

[audience laughing]

Well, we kept on a-moving
through thair,

and pretty soon,
everybody got where it was

that they was a-goin',

and what I seen
was this whole raft of people

a-settin' on these two banks
and a-lookin' at one another

across this pretty,
little green cow pasture.

And somebody had took
and drawed white lines

all over it
and drove posties in it

and I don't know what all,
and I looked down thair,

and I seen five
or six convicts

a-running up and down
and a-blowing whistles.

They was.

And then I looked down thair,
and I seen these pretty girls

wearin' these
little bitty short dresses

and a-dancin' around,
and so I sat down

and thought I'd see what it
was that was a-gonna happen.

And about the time
I got set down good,

I looked down thair,
and I seen 30 or 40 men

come runnin' out
of one end

of a great big outhouse
down thair.

[audience laughing]

They did!

And everybody
where I was a-settin'

got up and hollered!

And about that time,
30 or 40 come runnin' out

of the other end
of that outhouse,

and the other bankful,
they got up and hollered.

And I asked this fella

that was besettin'
beside of me.

I says, "Friend, what is it
that they're a-hollerin' for?"

Well, he whopped me
on the back,

and he says,
"Buddy, have a drink!"

[laughter]

Well I says, "I believe I will
have another Big Orange."

[laughter]

And when I got thair again,
I seen that them men

had got in two little bitty
bunches down there,

they had, rail close together,

and they voted.

[laughter]

They did.

They voted
and elected one man apiece.

[laughter]

(Rich)
Well, I think the good gag
we can do here is,

we can have a close-up

of one of the groups of guys
pickin' their man.

And I think I'm gonna
make our man in front

this little guy that's sort of
reluctant to go out there.

In the back, we're--

they've already
picked their man.

He's gonna be
a monster of a guy.

(Griffith)
And them two men come out

in the middle of that
cow pasture and shook hands

like they hadn't seen
one another in a long time.

And then, a convict come over
to where they was a-standin',

and he took out a quarter,

and they commenced
to odd-man right there!

Both bunches-full
of them men

wanted this funny-lookin'
little pumpkin to play with.

Hah, hah, hah!

(Griffith)
They did, and I know, friends,
that they couldn't a-eat it

because they kicked it
the whole evenin'

and it never busted.

[audience laughing]

And one bunch got it,
and it made the other bunch

just as mad as they could be,

and friends, I seen that
evenin' the awfulest fight

that I have ever seen
in my life!

I did!

This is the best part now.

This is where I get
to really have fun and draw.

I'm just gonna draw
this massive pile on

with all sorts of guys

getting slammed
and bit and cut.

You don't have to draw
the full figure.

You can have a face
poppin' out of nowhere

and work into this giant pile

of action
and stuff flyin' around.

(Griffith)
They would run at one another

and kick one another
and throw one another down

and stomp on one another

and grind their feet
in one another

and I don't know what all,

and just as fast
as one of 'em would get hurt,

they'd tote him off
and run another one on!

[spirited laughter]

Well...they done that
as long as I set there,

but pretty soon,

this boy that had said
"Ticket, please,"

he come up to me,
and he says,

"Friend,
you're gonna have to leave

because it is
that you don't have a ticket."

And I says, "Well, all right,"
and I got up and left.

[mellow acoustic guitar tune]

And I don't know, friends,
to this day what it was

that they was a-doin'
down thair,

but I have studied about it,

and I think that it's
some kindly of a contest

where they see
which bunchful of them men

can take that pumpkin

and run from one end
of that cow pasture

to the othern without either
gettin' knocked down

or steppin' in somethin'.

[laughter and applause]

♪

[low horn melody leads
dramatic orchestration]

♪

(man)
It was very, very foggy
when we went in,

and we didn't know
exactly where we were going.

They didn't tell us exactly
where they sent you--

just a beach landing,

and when we went in,
we hit the beach

and went to shore
as quickly as possible

and kinda dodged those things
goin' overhead all the time.

They were throwin'
shells a lot.

They had big guns up there

in the bunkers up
on top of the hills.

They were throwin'
big shells at us,

and you don't dodge those.

♪

(narrator)
As World War II
fades deeper into memory

and its veterans
slowly pass away,

it's all too easy to forget--

perhaps even
take for granted--

the sacrifice made
by so many on our behalf.

♪

(Dewitt)
And they would
make us stand someplace

where we had
a good chance of firepower,

and we'd make a stand,
and our tanks would come up--

the M3 tanks would come up
and battle their tanks.

They'd have
a tank fight, and--

and we'd have infan--
infantry fight.

And, uh, then we'd move on.

(narrator)
As the war
ground toward its conclusion,

the earth still trembled
with uncertainty.

Yet men like Dewitt
soldiered on,

carrying the world's freedom
on their backs.

But there were
light moments too.

The USO was
a home away from home

for our servicemen and -women
and a source of entertainment,

welcome relief
from the horror of war.

And no one sang
as convincingly of home

as the Andrews Sisters.

[big band horns introduce
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"]

♪

[harmonizing]
♪ He was a famous trumpet man
from out Chicago way ♪

♪ He had a boogie style
that no one else could play ♪

♪ He was the top man
at his craft ♪

♪ But then
his number came up ♪

♪ And he was gone
with the draft ♪

♪ He's in the Army now,
a-blowin' reveille ♪

♪ He's the boogie-woogie
bugle boy of Company B ♪

♪ Mr. What-ya-call-em,
whatcha doin' tonight? ♪

♪ Hope you're
in the mood ♪

♪ Because I'm feelin'
just right ♪

♪ How's about a corner
with a table for two ♪

♪ Where the music's mellow ♪

(narrator)
Meet Erinn Diaz
and Serah Haley,

headlined
as Letters from Home,

or, if you'd rather,
America's Bombshell Duo.

Our mission
is to tour the country

and honor our veterans,

active military heroes,
and their families

by paying tribute to the music
and the spirit of the 1940s.

(narrator)
Erinn and Serah
were performers

practically from birth.

Erinn was born on the road,
in a car in a snowstorm,

no doubt with tunes
playing on the radio.

Serah and her family

sang harmony
on their vacation trips.

I started doing tap dancing
when I was three years old,

and I just tapped
my entire life.

I sang;
I did a lot of musicals,

and I just had a lot of fun

being on stage and performing,
but especially tap-dancing.

It's something
that's always been

near and dear to my heart.

Through school,
I always sang at school.

I always
was in choruses and choirs

and, you know,
did different kind of honors

and national choruses
like that.

♪ Sing, sing, sing, sing ♪

♪ Everybody start to sing ♪

(narrator)
These young women

have no direct recollection
of the 1940s,

yet they have come
to inhabit it

as if somehow
it was meant to be.

The idea
for Letters from Home

came from Erinn's dad,
Pat Dearth,

a Coast Guard vet.

(Erinn)
I had always put together

a lotta different
kinds of shows,

and I wanted to think
of a new idea for shows

that we could take
into retirement homes

and communities
and things like that,

and my father said,
"You have to do 1940s music.

"You've gotta do
that kind of music.

"It's my favorite.

"Listen to this song,
'Pistol Packin' Mama,'

and this song,
'Swinging on a Star,'"

and he just starts pulling out
all these great songs.

I thought,
this is a great idea,

and Monday rolled around,
and I was hired to do

an after-school
theater program

at Forsyth Country Day School
in Winston-Salem.

And I was gonna be
in Miss Haley's classroom.

I didn't know
who Miss Haley was

because we had known
each other in high school

but we had lost touch;
we both got married.

We both had
different last names,

and I walked
into her classroom

on Tuesday and--
Whoa!--surprise!

I was sitting,
working at my desk,

and I looked up,
and there's Erinn,

and I said,
"Erinn? Is that you?"

I was like, "What
are you doing here?"

And so she came over,
and she said,

"Are you still
performing?"

and I said, "I guess so.

What are you thinkin' about?"

She started tellin' me
a little bit about it.

(Erinn)
I said, "We're gonna sing
and tap-dance,"

and she says, "No,
I don't tap-dance."

I was like,
"I can teach you,"

and she said,
"No, you can't.

You don't understand;
I don't dance."

(narrator)
Well, that might
have been true at one time,

but in true trouper fashion,
the show must go on...

in VA hospitals,
theaters, schools,

VFW and American Legion halls,

on cruise ships
and military bases,

and at patriotic events
across North Carolina

and 19 other states so far.

Wherever they go,
like here in their hometown

at the Winston-Salem Air Show,

veterans
from all service branches

and all wars
flock to hear Serah and Erinn.

(Serah)
And I have never
gotten to do this show

for my grandfather, um.

[voice breaking]
He actually...

passed away
one month

before we started
performing the show,

so I never even
got to tell him

that we were doing it,

so it's really neat to do it
and honor a memory of him

and reaching back
to World War II

and a time that I know
he so would have appreciated,

and so it's really special.

[tapping and singing
over jazz recording]

♪

(narrator)
They may make it all
look easy,

but making it look easy
takes a lot of hard work,

the song part
and the dance part.

That's why they rehearse
over 20 hours a week.

♪

But rehearsals
don't stop there.

With over 100 shows a year
and a constantly changing act,

you can find
the girls practicing

most anywhere
they can snatch a moment:

in the driveway,
even the backseat of the car.

[duo singing faintly]

(Serah)
And sometimes,
when we're on tour

and we can't
get into the studio,

we miss that rehearsal time.

We can't stop,
so along the way in the car,

we'll be singing,

or we'll be moving our feet
and practicing our steps

in our seats, and always--

we always want to...make
the show more exciting

the next time
somebody sees us.

(Erinn)
We travel in a truck
and a trailer

that has all our sound
equipment and costumes

pretty much
all over the country.

(Serah)
And we couldn't be happier.

(narrator)
Behind most good acts,
you probably know,

there's usually someone
who takes on

all the unsung
but oh-so-critical

organizational stuff.

In this case,
that's Erinn's husband Nelson,

an Air Force veteran

who manages Letters From Home
plus loads the car,

drives them to gigs,
organizes air travel,

sees to their bags,

and on and on--heh, heh.

Actually, I think
one of Nelson's
biggest strengths

is the ability to
completely tune us out.

[both laughing]

There's so many things
you could've said!

I didn't--
hah, hah!

He will be driving
along for hours,

and we will be
"dip, dip...dip" nonstop,

and we'll say, "Nelson,

what do you
think about that?"

(Erinn)
He'll go, "About what?"--hah!

(Serah)
So

metimes he doesn't
ev

en respond!

We have to actually
tap him on the
shoulder and say,

"Hey, you're
welcome to come

into this
conversation now--"
hah, hah, hah!

["Ballad of the Green Beret"]
♪ Trained to live ♪

♪ Off nature's land ♪

(narrator)
As you might expect,

every soldier has a story
and a song,

a tune they likely carried
in their heads and hearts

after leaving our state
for the war front.

We were at a VA hospital

in Asheville,

and as we were singing, uh--

we finished our show.

I walked past someone,
and he stood up

out of his wheelchair
to give me a hug.

All the nurses
came flooding around,

and they ran up to him,
and they were grabbing him,

and it looked
like something was wrong.

And Nelson spoke to the lady
not too long after that,

and he's like,
"Is everything OK?"

And she said,
"Yeah, everything's OK.

"He has not stood up
by himself

in over three years."

He was so moved by the music
that he just stood up,

and then we went back
to that same VA hospital

to perform our Christmas show
six months later,

and he was walking
down the hall with his walker.

The music
literally changed him.

(narrator)
It's a privilege
for Letters From Home

to treat these vets
to musical memories,

but there are
some continuing challenges,

one of which is coming up
with the funds necessary

to fuel their journey.

There's more
that goes into

simply getting
to a place

than a lot of people
would think.

So last year,
we set up what we're--

we call the Veterans
Performance Fund,

and it's an opportunity
for somebody to either donate,

or all of our merchandise
that we have,

our CDs, our posters,
pictures, patches, calendars--

anything we have--
every bit of that money

goes towards that Veterans
Performance Fund.

And that fund helps us
to go to places like that

or to VA hospitals,
for example.

It's not a project,
but it's a place that--

you know,
we've all heard

that there's not
great funding

for things
like that,

so they obviously

won't have extra money
for entertainment

or things like that,
so it gives us the ability

to go to those
places and reach out
to those people.

Who really need it.

mm-hm

(narrator)
People like Dewitt Wells

of the 90th Division,
359th Regiment,

who you can bet
has a song of his own

and a story to go with it.

Back in, uh, '45...

'46, uh...

we used to go dancing--
USO dances,

and one of the dances,

they, uh, sang
"Sentimental Journey."

We decided, we'd claim
that song for our song,

and every time
we ever hear it,

we would go on
and waltz to it.

It's a beautiful song.

They'd play it
on the television

or the radio,
and we'd go in the living room

and start dancing,
start waltzing,

and, uh,
she was a good waltzer.

I had to keep up with her.

♪ To renew old memories ♪

♪ I got my bag ♪

You talk about running water.

I had water
comin' out of both eyes.

It was just a precious song,

for them to stand there
in front of me

and sing it to me,
and I love it.

♪ Journey home ♪

(narrator)
So the next time
you get hankerin'

for some tunes
from the '40s and more,

keep your ears out
for when Letters From Home

is appearing in your town.

You can pretty much bet

that Serah and Erinn
will know your song too.

[applause]

[gentle guitar plucking]

♪

(man)
When I write a song, it, uh...

it is an emotion
or an experience that, uh--

that's tryin' to come out.

♪

The thing
that's important to me

is to try to write a song
that people can connect with,

but give 'em something of it
they can go back--

maybe collect thoughts on
and take 'em back to--

to a--to another time,
a happier time.

♪

I would overhear my wife
tellin' stories

to our children
about what it was like

growin' up on the mountain
with her grandmother.

They lived
in a one-room cabin up there

with no running water,
no electricity.

[driving guitar rhythm]

♪ I was born
down in North Carolina ♪

♪ Blue Ridge Mountains,
I call home ♪

♪ Bright, sunny days
make a life worth a-livin' ♪

♪ Cool,
starry nights ♪

♪ Make me
miss my home ♪

♪ Cool,
starry nights ♪

♪ Make me miss
my home ♪

[voice-over]
My wife tellin' stories
about up on the mountain

inspired me to write
a few lyrics down

based off events
of my wife's childhood.

♪ Back
in the hills ♪

♪ Life didn't
come easy ♪

[harmonizing]
♪ Corn wouldn't grow ♪

♪ On dry, rocky ground ♪

♪ Grandma's
old cow ♪

♪ Goes dry
in the summer ♪

♪ Coon dogs at night,
how I love that sound ♪

♪ Coon dogs at night,
how I love that sound ♪

[guitar takes melody]

♪

♪ Hot summer
days ♪

♪ Spent swingin'
on grapevines ♪

[harmonizing]
♪ Cowboys and Indians ♪

♪ With my cousins and me ♪

( Larry)
♪ Suppertime, Grandma prayed ♪

♪ O'er
our table ♪

♪ We're poor, we're poor
but as happy could be ♪

♪ We're poor, we're poor
but as happy could be ♪

♪

[bell clanging]

♪

♪ Sunday mornin' ♪

♪ We'd all walk together ♪

[in unison]
♪ To a little mountain church ♪

♪ Where we'd sing
and we'd pray ♪

♪ "Victory in Jesus" ♪

♪ Was Grandma's favorite ♪

♪ You'd hear her
a-singin' ♪

♪ Half a mile
away ♪

♪ Hear her a-singin'
half a mile away ♪

♪

♪ Grandpa had
brown crocks ♪

♪ Full of homebrew ♪

[harmonizing]
♪ He didn't care ♪

♪ That Grandma knew ♪

(Larry)
♪ One Sunday morning ♪

♪ Grandpa met
an old preacher ♪

♪ Now "Victory
in Jesus" ♪

♪ Is his
favorite too ♪

♪ "Victory
in Jesus" ♪

♪ Is his
favorite too ♪

♪

♪ Wild roses
bloomin' ♪

♪ Along
the fence line ♪

[harmonizing]
♪ Honeysuckle smells ♪

♪ Like sweet perfume ♪

♪ Summer
rains ♪

♪ Made me run
for the doorstep ♪

♪ We'd lie on
that feather bed ♪

♪ In her room ♪

♪ Lie on that feather bed
in

her room ♪

♪

♪

♪ Sometimes
at night ♪

♪ As I sit
by the fireside ♪

♪ My mind
wanders back ♪

♪ To a time
long ago ♪

♪ Seems
I can hear ♪

♪ Her voice
in the darkness ♪

♪ Callin' me,
callin' me ♪

♪ To my old
mountain home ♪

♪ Callin' me,
callin' me ♪

♪ To my old
mountain home ♪

♪ I was born
down in North Carolina ♪

[harmonizing]
♪ Blue Ridge Mountains ♪

♪ I call
home ♪

♪

[playing concluding melody]

♪

[guitars lead
loping arrangement]

♪

♪

[glockenspiel supports
upbeat guitar plucking]

♪

Caption Perfect, Inc.
www.CaptionPerfect.com

♪

(announcer)
To subscribe
to Our State magazine,

visit the Web site
ourstate.com or call...

[strings support
gentle piano melody]

From the time BB&T
opened its doors in 1872

in the town of Wilson,

we've supported
the people and communities

of North Carolina

from the Outer Banks
to the Blue Ridge Mountains.

We've been in business
for 136 years,

making us the oldest bank
in North Carolina.

We're proud
of this distinction,

and we're also very proud

to provide funding
for Our State .

♪

Quality public television
is made possible

through the financial
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of viewers like you,

who invite you to join them
in supporting UNC-TV.