Here's a terrific article from 2016 on Betty Lynn, who played Thelma Lou on The Andy Griffith Show. I would have linked to it then but I just saw it today for the first time.
For those of you new to this blog, there's a reason I have a special interest in Ms. Lynn. In the article, it says — and I quote: "In 1950, she bought a house in west Los Angeles. Built in 1928, it became the home for Lynn, her mother and her grandparents." Three years later, my parents bought the home next door and they moved in, bringing their one-year-old son. That son was me. Betty was more than a great neighbor. She was like my unrelated aunt and I couldn't care more about her if she was family.
With but two and a half months left in 2019, the leading contender for the title of "Favorite Thing I Did This Year" is that last June, I went to visit Betty in Mt. Airy, North Carolina where she now lives. I wrote about it here and in that piece, you'll see me saying a lot of the same things about her that are in the linked article. They include how wonderful she is and how people make pilgrimages to that town and to The Andy Griffith Museum to meet her. Three years later, she's still going there to give them that thrill. I need to make more pilgrimages myself to see her.