TV Land, a cable refuge for hopeless nostalgists, is currently celebrating 50 days of “The Andy Griffith Show” to commemorate the television classic’s 50th Anniversary. The event may warrant a national holiday.

In 2008, I exasperatedly informed a Republican friend that Griffith, 84, was supporting Barack Obama in the race for the presidency. The friend replied, “Who is Andy Griffith?”

Everyone should know the story of Andy Griffith. His political inclinations aside, his show was perhaps the greatest in television history.

Set in the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina, in the 1960s, “The Andy Griffith Show” was a smash hit that continues to be replayed on numerous channels even today.

It is one of only three series to be ranked number one during its final season, the other two being “I Love Lucy” and “Seinfeld.”

Of course, the last season of the show wasn’t even the best. The best episodes came during the first five seasons, before Don Knotts, who portrayed bumbling deputy Barney Fife, left the cast to star in movies for Universal Studios.

Fife, who was given one bullet and instructed to keep it in his coat pocket at all times, was Griffith’s memorable comic sidekick. Ever confident in his skills, Fife once arrested half the town of Mayberry in one day, including Griffith’s son, Opie, and his aunt Bee.

Perhaps the most timeless episode of “The Andy Griffith Show” came at the beginning of the fourth season. In the season premiere, “Opie and the Birdman,” Opie, while playing with his new slingshot, killed a mother bird.

Andy disciplined Opie by making him listen to the younger birds chirp, waiting on their mother to return.

Opie, saddened at the sound of the desperate birds, decided to take care of them himself. He raised the birds in a cage and, when they were ready, he let them fly away.

Of course, the show wasn’t all about serious life lessons. It was full of rabble-rousers like Otis, the town drunk, and Ernest T. Bass, a mountain man who occasionally visited Mayberry.

Entering with the famous catchphrase, “It’s me, it’s me, it’s Ernest T,” the hillbilly usually made sure his presence was known by throwing a rock through a window. He would depart saying, “You ain’t seen the last of Ernest T. Bass.”

Fife summed him up succinctly, frequently exclaiming, “He’s a nut!”

Otis, also a nut, would lock himself into the jail after getting drunk, and then release himself the next day by grabbing the keys conveniently left hanging right outside his cell.

While I was at home over the summer, a friend of my grandmother’s mentioned that she and her husband watch “Andy Griffith” on the local CBS affiliate every afternoon. An alumnus of the University of Alabama, the lady remarked that she was a friend of Jim Nabors when she was here, and was his date to a ball.

Nabors, a native of Sylacauga, Alabama, who graduated from this university, starred in The Andy Griffith Show as goofy, southern gas station attendant Gomer Pyle.

Pyle responded to most startling news by famously exclaiming: “Shazam!” His character was so popular that he was given his own show; a spinoff titled “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.”

After Nabors left for the spinoff, his replacement at the Mayberry gas station also had Alabama roots. George Lindsey, acting as Gomer’s cousin Goober Pyle, was raised in Jasper.

These southern actors collaborated together to make a very southern TV show, a show that portrayed the very best of small town life. At the time, it resonated with a large audience of people who either idealized the simple ways of Mayberry, or who lived in similar places around the country. Today, it resonates with people who think wistfully of the olden days, when the county sheriff really didn’t have to be all that serious because there wasn’t that much crime.

Even so, at the heart of “The Andy Griffith Show,” there is a story that we all still need very much to hear. It is the story of a widower who, with the help of his aunt, proved to be an excellent father for his son. It is the story of a sheriff who kept his cool, even as several unserious characters surrounded him. It is the story of a community of people who very much loved and cared for one another.

I have an aunt who often tells me I was born forty years too late. When I watch “The Andy Griffith Show,” I wonder if she might not be right.

Tray Smith is the opinions editor of the Crimson White. His column runs on Fridays.