Like Something Out of
Hollywood

A Career Climb in Retrospect

 

by Robert Winter

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A longtime Southern California resident laughingly describes his inability to carve a turkey:

I'm always grateful when my friend Sammy is there. He should have been a surgeon he carves so well.

PRELIMINARY QUESTION:   Does the speaker sound like...

(a)    The chief of neurosurgery at a prestigious hospital?
(b)    A prominent prime time television producer?
(c)    John Boy of The Waltons?

ANSWER: Both (b) and (c) are correct.  John Boy has become remarkably well assimilated in Hollywood during the years since his departure from his native Blue Ridge foothills.

The Waltons, as you may recall, was filled with references to John Boy's ambition to become a writer.  Earl Hamner, Jr., the man on whom the character of John Boy is based, has accomplished that and more.

(c) COPYRIGHT 1990 ROBERT WINTER.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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