Date: 07/21/00 11:24:36 PM
Name: Dave
Email: dhowey@idir.net
Subject: My thoughts on Billie Jo...I'm new to the board
I was in Baltimore on Monday and saw the article in USA Today about the death of Meredith. My heart really sank -- I am an amateur writer, so I wrote this piece for my friends...I hope my thoughts are welcome on this board. Thank you. If I missed any details, please let me know.
"Petticoat Junction" was a popular television show that aired on CBS from 1963 until 1970. The show centered around the life of the Bradley family; the mother Kate and her three daughters who ran the Shady Rest Hotel near Hooterville. Kate's daughters were notable for all having names ending in "Jo," presumably named after the amiable, if often cantakerous and even meddle-some, "Uncle Joe". Kate's daughters were the "somewhat dizzy" red-head, Betty Jo, the perky brunette, Bobbie Jo, and of course Billie Jo, the beautiful blonde with her trademark "sultry" good looks and beautiful singing voice. She was smart as well as ravishingly beautiful, quite different today's quintessential "dumb blonde". For many American boys growing up in the 1960's, Billie Jo, with her sophisticated charm and her natural beauty was our first love, our first crush. Sure, there were other "TV women," Jeannie (too unpredictable and her dark-haired cousin was a trouble-maker), Ellie May (you'd never get past Grannie, plus, who wants to date Jethro Bodine's cousin?), Ginger and Mary Ann (too far away), June Cleaver (too married and too black and white), Miss Bunny (you might not want to mess with Drill Sergeant Carter), and Thelma Lou (I don't think so; she's with Barney Fife).
Nope, Billie Jo was perfect. She was the sugar-sweet "girl next door" with the brilliant smile, the long blonde hair, and the deep brown eyes. And we loved her from right in front of our TV sets. Kneeling down, two feet from the screen of our parent's first General Electric color console TV, we watched each week and she, Uncle Joe, Betty Jo, Bobbie Jo and Kate got into and out of all kinds of trouble, as the Hooterville Cannonball, the local train, ferried guests and visitors in and out of the spotlight.
"Petticoat Juntion" was related to two other popular rural shows of the early and mid-1960's, "Green Acres" and "The Beverly Hillbillies." Uncle Jed, Uncle Joe, Oliver Wendell Douglas, Granny Clampett, Mr. Haney, Sam Drucker, and Arnold the Pig were all from the same area, the fictional Hooterville/Bugtussle region. It made us feel at home, it made us feel a part of a large family. But of those three shows, "Petticoat Junction" was the most realistic and the most believable. The Shady Rest was a quiet place to relax and enjoy the stories and antics of Uncle Joe, some of Kate's country cooking, and the company of three charming girls. There was always the hint of an innocent and bucolic country sexuality in the show, but it always stayed tastefully just below the surface. Rememeber the opening sequence, where the girls are in the water tower, pulling their petticoats off of the side of the tower? We wondered what they were wearing and if we'd ever get to jump in there with them. And for many of us, the one we'd most like to jump in there with was Billie Jo Bradley.
Billie Jo was the kind of girl we wanted to grow up and marry. We knew in our hearts that when we brought her home, our brothers would be jealous, our Moms would approve and our Dads would wink and say "good job, son." Betty Jo got married. But Billie Jo never did. Long after Betty Jo married and moved in with Steve, our beautiful Billie Jo stayed home with us in the Shady Rest, bringing us apple pie and ice cream, or singing an after-dinner medley with her sisters, or scolding Uncle Joe for trying to meddle in someone's life.
Love interests came and went in Billie Jo's life, but through it all, we secretly knew that she was ours and ours alone. Billie Jo was our secret girlfriend when the world was still a sweet and decent place; before the horrors of Vietnam and the ugliness of Watergate made us cynical and made us question the meaning of life. TV was different back then, it wasn't "reality TV". Darva Conger is a blonde, but she's sure no Billie Jo Bradley. (Ma'am, I knew Billie Jo and you're no Billie Jo) Television in those days showed us the way life COULD be, not necessarily the way life was. Maybe that ain't all bad.
Meredith McRae, the actress who played our sweet, beautiful girl-next-door, Billie Jo from 1966 to 1970 died last Friday (July 14) of brain cancer. She was 56 years old. Meredith McRae had had been hospitalized for the better part of eighteen months and last week, her struggle finally ended. Along with Billie Jo, for many of us, a little piece of ourselves has died with her - a piece of our youth, a piece of our hearts, and, yes; a piece of our innocence. Many of us shy little boys secretly dreamed of the chance of dating Billie Jo. For us, that dream is gone, because now, our sweet Billie Jo is gone. The world is just a little less pleasant with that dream torn from our hearts. God bless you, Billie Jo, your beauty was natural and your voice was like an angel's. We can't thank you enough -- for being beautiful without flaunting it, for being sweet and really meaning it, and for being so sexy and for not really knowing that you were. You always seemed as pure and innocent as the wind-driven snow and sweet mountain honey.
We will miss you and yes; we will always have re-runs. But for us who were those shy little boys, our lives will never be quite the same without that dream, that sweet dream of quietly sitting with you in the moonlight on the front-porch swing of the Shady Rest Hotel, with your soft hand in ours as the Cannonball roars by on the way back in to Hooterville.