JOHN RAILEY: Andy Griffith delivered "Mayberry Miracle" for Mike Easley, lively times kept going

In 2000, Andy Griffith lent his support to Mike Easley, the North Carolina attorney general and Democratic candidate for governor. Easley was running a tough race against Richard Vinroot, a Republican who was a former Charlotte mayor.

It was the latest step in Andy’s work in North Carolina politics, an effort that had started on Roanoke Island, where he had begun his career in The Lost Colony and where he made his home.

Andy, close to Lost Colony icon Cora Mae “Agona” Basnight, had watched Cora Mae’s son Marc grow up. As Democrat Marc Basnight started in the state Senate in the mid-1980s, Andy emceed a party for Basnight’s fellow legislators at Basnight’s island home -- Andy’s presence drawing a large bipartisan crowd, helping the newcomer rise to head of the state Senate.

In 1989, some North Carolina Democratic leaders had tried to recruit Andy to run against incumbent Republican Jesse Helms for the U.S. Senate. Internal polls showed Andy could win the race, some said. Andy rejected the push and was wise to do so. He might well have won, and his very private self would have hated the very public job.

As Easley began his 2000 run for governor, an island buddy of Andy’s suggested Easley recruit Andy to do a campaign commercial. One of Easley’s media folks from up North asked him if he was sure that was a good idea, if people would remember Andy. Easley just shook his head and told the staffer to proceed with the commercial by all means.

In the summer of 2000, before making the commercial, Andy, on his island, had a heart attack that could have killed him.

As Andy recovered, he taped the commercial for Easley. It ran in the last weeks of the race and is often credited in helping Easley win. Pundits called it “The Mayberry Miracle.”

In the years ahead, Andy and Easley drew close. They loved to joke with each other, “cuttin’ the fool” as Easley called it. They had both started as underdogs. Andy, a factory worker’s son, had been called “white trash” in his Mount Airy hometown and never got over it.

Easley had trouble reading in school and was sometimes called “lazy.” He realized as an adult that he was dyslexic, finally understanding his early learning challenges. Easley said they were alike in that they both were engrossed when they were preparing for speeches, shunning personal contact in the time before. They were both charismatic, natural charmers, earthy storytellers who were, simultaneously and paradoxically, private people who excelled in public fields, using their talent and connections to rise. They shared a love of woodworking and music.

The governor and his son Michael visited Andy at his island home, the governor and Andy playing guitars and Michael playing banjo. During one session, Easley thought he was doing well, taking off on his jamming. Andy looked up from his own strumming and wryly told Easley, “Maybe you better stick to being governor.”

Their fun times continued. On Aug. 16, 2002, Andy led in the opening of a new, four-lane bridge from mainland Dare County to Roanoke Island, driving his 1935 Packard convertible across the bridge with passengers Cindi; Easley and his wife, Mary; and Attorney General Roy Cooper, who would later become governor himself. Despite his love of cars, Andy was not a good driver, easily distracted by the scenes around him. But Easley remembered with a laugh: “It was a wide bridge and no one else was on it.”

The opening of the Virginia Dare Memorial Bridge from Manns Harbor to Manteo was a milestone moment for Andy. When he first came from the Dare County mainland to the island, he’d arrived by ferry. A two-lane bridge had opened in 1957. As the new $91 million bridge opened, Andy and Easley got out of Andy’s car to an adoring crowd. People rushed forward with cameras.

A woman gave her camera to Easley and asked him to take her picture with Andy, and more folks asked the same. The governor obliged them. He knew who the crowd was there to see.

The following October, Easley was there for the star as Andy worked out his ambivalent relationship with Mount Airy. Andy made his first public appearance in his hometown in more than forty years for the dedication of a section of U.S. Highway 52 as the Andy Griffith Parkway. Andy, who had dismissed claims that Mayberry was based on Mount Airy, said, “People started saying Mayberry was based on Mount Airy. Sure sounds like, doesn’t it?”

The actor was clearly playing to his hometown crowd. In the 1990s, he had told Manteo author Angel Ellis Khoury that “Mount Airy is not Mayberry” and “If Mayberry is anywhere, it is Manteo.” That still stood, especially considering that Andy had built his life around Manteo. He never pulled back the Manteo statement, his strongest words about the Mayberry model.

Easley and Andy stayed close, sharing laughs. During the 2009 inauguration for Easley’s successor, Bev Perdue, Easley, seated beside Andy, whispered to him that “I used to be a prince and now I am just a frog.” Andy whispered back, “Reebick, Reebick.”

“We were sitting in those aluminum chairs like you have at church picnics,” Easley said, “and we both started laughing so hard. When Andy got to laughing, he always threw his hands up and leaned back. We leaned back onto the people behind us until they had to set our chairs straight!”