This one begins with Grandpa and John-Boy walking in the forest and encountering two men surveying the land. Grandpa tells them they have no business surveying Walton property, but they insist their company filed a claim on this land a year ago and will soon be building an access road to let them cut timber.
It turns out that no Walton ever filed for a formal deed after an 1850 law made it a requirement to have a permanent claim to it. The lawyer they consulted told them their family records could get them established as owners, but they would need $200 for court fees.
A family meeting established that they were over $150 short of that total. While all the family was pitching in to do whatever they could, encountering various problems trying to increase their income, John-Boy decided to take a major step to help out. First, he would reduce the family food bills by 1/11th by temporarily moving to Wheeling, where he planned to take a job and send money home to the family.
Luckily, Yancy Tucker was delivering some "supplies" to a shop in Wheeling and he drove John-Boy there.
The bulk of this episode dealt with a 17-year-old getting his first taste of city life. Almost as soon as he arrived, he witness some would-be hold-up men escaping from a tattoo parlor. He found a boarding house—thanks to Yancy's recommendation—and chose the $4 rate, rather than the $13 one that included meals. He had brought a week's worth of sandwiches and such to eat. Had this been a mini-series, they would have had time to have him struggle to find work longer. Instead, the son of the boarding house owner helped him get work at a machine shop where he worked.
We saw John-Boy working, going to a diner for a cheap meal, getting a movie-date with a fellow boarder, and again encountering those bandits he saw his first night in town. To me, this episode gave us a brief, but reasonably accurate look at some elements of life in a city for a young man, looking for his first job.
In the end, John-Boy had an adventure, and definitely did some growing up, and they succeeded in getting what they needed to keep possession of the mountain thanks to a really unexpected source of income. I was caught up with the elements of what moving to the city can be for a young man and for this, I think this episode stands out as one of the series very best—a solid 10 in my opinion. Watching these again this winter, this makes 3 episodes I rated a 10 out of the first 20. That seems about the right percentage for a series I rate as highly as this one.
It turns out that no Walton ever filed for a formal deed after an 1850 law made it a requirement to have a permanent claim to it. The lawyer they consulted told them their family records could get them established as owners, but they would need $200 for court fees.
A family meeting established that they were over $150 short of that total. While all the family was pitching in to do whatever they could, encountering various problems trying to increase their income, John-Boy decided to take a major step to help out. First, he would reduce the family food bills by 1/11th by temporarily moving to Wheeling, where he planned to take a job and send money home to the family.
Luckily, Yancy Tucker was delivering some "supplies" to a shop in Wheeling and he drove John-Boy there.
The bulk of this episode dealt with a 17-year-old getting his first taste of city life. Almost as soon as he arrived, he witness some would-be hold-up men escaping from a tattoo parlor. He found a boarding house—thanks to Yancy's recommendation—and chose the $4 rate, rather than the $13 one that included meals. He had brought a week's worth of sandwiches and such to eat. Had this been a mini-series, they would have had time to have him struggle to find work longer. Instead, the son of the boarding house owner helped him get work at a machine shop where he worked.
We saw John-Boy working, going to a diner for a cheap meal, getting a movie-date with a fellow boarder, and again encountering those bandits he saw his first night in town. To me, this episode gave us a brief, but reasonably accurate look at some elements of life in a city for a young man, looking for his first job.
In the end, John-Boy had an adventure, and definitely did some growing up, and they succeeded in getting what they needed to keep possession of the mountain thanks to a really unexpected source of income. I was caught up with the elements of what moving to the city can be for a young man and for this, I think this episode stands out as one of the series very best—a solid 10 in my opinion. Watching these again this winter, this makes 3 episodes I rated a 10 out of the first 20. That seems about the right percentage for a series I rate as highly as this one.
