Tom Smith

I liked Jim Nabors when I was a kid -- watched him on The Andy Griffith Show, and then when he spun off into the equally popular Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Then one day we got to hear him sing, and whoa. Bumpkin face, opera voice.

Not that I'd thought much about him in the ensuing decades. He'd kinda dropped off my radar. Well, that certainly changed today:

Jim Nabors, the Hawaii resident well known for his starring role in the 1960s television sitcom "Gomer Pyle, USMC," married his longtime male partner early this month, he told Hawaii News Now Tuesday.

Nabors, 82, said he married his companion of 38 years, Stan Cadwallader, who's 64, in Seattle on Jan. 15.

[...]

"I'm 82 and he's in his 60s and so we've been together for 38 years and I'm not ashamed of people knowing, it's just that it was such a personal thing, I didn't tell anybody," Nabors said. "I'm very happy that I've had a partner of 38 years and I feel very blessed. And, what can I tell you, I'm just very happy."

I'm very happy as well. Dude's spent his life entertaining people, and half of it in the company of one devoted companion.

And, I can't help it: the mercenary, politically-minded side of me thinks the timing is perfect. Nabors is a lesser American icon, pretty much beloved by everybody, without a mean bone in his body... and now he is finally, legally wed to his long-time partner. Who's mean or crabby or obsessed enough to object? What the hell are people going to say against Gomer Pyle? Does this invalidate all the gospel records he recorded?

Go get 'em, Jim. And much happiness to you and Stan.

This entry was originally posted at http://filkertom.dreamwidth.org/1598051.html. You may comment there or here, although LJ tends to have a livelier conversation at this time.