Good night, John-Boy. Good night, Earl Hamner Jr.

[mrclose]

“Good night, John-Boy.”

If those words mean nothing to you, you’re probably under age 40, perhaps a millennial. If they do, you’re probably a boomer, to whom they are unforgettable, bound to bring back visions of a better time and a better place, an era, in the words Thursday of one fan of “The Waltons,” when “family was so much more appreciated.”

That era, however, wouldn’t be the ’60s or the ’70s. The setting of “The Waltons,” from which “Good night, John-Boy” derived fame, belongs to “The Greatest Generation.” The television series was set in the Depression, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, just below the “taller ridges … rimmed with a fading autumn silver,” as Earl Hamner Jr. wrote in his semi-autobiographical novel “Spencer’s Mountain,” from which “The Waltons” was drawn.

On “The Waltons,” John-Boy was played by actor Richard Thomas, better known these days not as the bookish country boy he once personified but as the spy-hunting bureaucrat Agent Gaad on another hit series, “The Americans.”

In real life, John-Boy was indeed Hamner, creator and narrator of the show as well as author of “Spencer’s Mountain.” Now he is gone. He was 92, a veteran of World War II,  one of America’s best-loved writers and, as the narrator of “The Waltons,” a much-loved voice.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/25/good-night-john-boy-good-night-earl-hamner-jr/

[ExGeeEye]

Huh.  Well, may the family be comforted.

Another in a series of times I have been surprised that someone I would have thought long gone was still alive or had just passed on.

For example, still with us at 74, is Marina Prusakova Oswald Porter.

[jtyangel]

He seems to have missed the generation that were actually children when the Waltons was running and the reason parents ie boomers tuned into the family friendly show. I am neither. A boomer or a millenial but spent elementary school years watching the Waltons every week with my family. Rip to this man. I just got a giggle that the writer of this tribute failed to even acknowledge the actual generation of children that would have watched this with thier family ie Gen x lol

[Eupher]

He seems to have missed the generation that were actually children when the Waltons was running and the reason parents ie boomers tuned into the family friendly show. I am neither. A boomer or a millenial but spent elementary school years watching the Waltons every week with my family. Rip to this man. I just got a giggle that the writer of this tribute failed to even acknowledge the actual generation of children that would have watched this with thier family ie Gen x lol

Perhaps not a boomer, but right on the cusp. The boomer era ran for about 20 years, from just after WWII to about 1965. As "The Waltons" ran into the mid-Seventies, you were born perhaps in the late Sixties. No matter - you watched the show and the point got across.

This was one of those shows that showed a simpler time with fewer social ills that the rest of prime time showed, mostly at the hands of Norman Lear who incessantly and successfully (?) paraded a series of TV shows that were relentless in their portrayal of how ****ed up Americans are. 

"The Waltons" was a bit of fresh air.

RIP Mr. Hamner. I found your voice to be peaceful and reassuring in an era when things were anything but.