NPR.org, February 25, 2006 · LOS ANGELES (AP) — Don Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, has died. He was 81.
Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs The Andy Griffith Show and another Knotts hit, Three’s Company.
One night his dad called from Miami to tell him his mom told him to call and tell him Lisa was trouble.
He knew Lisa was trouble.
It wasn’t like it wasn’t obvious.
It was just that he was, any way you look at it, helpless.
It was like his life started when he met Lisa. He’d just been waiting around to live. Getting by. Keeping people off his back. But Lisa made him want to please her so bad. It was a compulsion. For a year and a half everything he did was, in one way or another, an attempt to make Lisa happy.
And it wasn’t like he hadn’t known from the very first day that that was probably impossible. It was almost as if it was the very impossibility of pleasing her that made him crave it all the more.
And yet he also knew that she wanted to be happy. He could feel it.
And, finally, he knew that she didn’t know how impossible her own happiness was. And that made the compulsion to go to any length to please her all the more irresistable.
Lately it looks like I’ll be losing Lisa
Danged if there’s a thing I can do to keep her
It scares me what I used to do to please her
‘Cause now I know there’s just no pleasing Lisa
Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa
Gave all my records and my stereo to Lisa
gave up my band and dropped out of school — all for Lisa
Tattoed her name in a secret place — it said “Property of Lisa”
What a waste of time ’cause nothing ever pleases Lisa
Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa
Got a second job just to buy nice things for Lisa
Laptop, cell phone, wetbar in her car — all for Lisa
But she’s not impressed, she’s not happy yet — that’s just Lisa
‘Cause nothing in the world will ever please that girl — that’s our Lisa
Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa Now I know — there’s no pleasing Lisa
He stumbled into a great job, found a little walkup in a decent neighborhood. Others struggled to make it in the city but everything fell into place for him.
And he was thankful for that, because he knew he couldn’t take the chance of running into her if he’d stayed back home. And that would have happened. They had all the same friends. The same favorite places. The same favorite camping spot a half hour out of town.
So he went to the city and succeeded. His friends were amazed. His family was relieved.
And he was… not lonely. Although he chose to be alone, for the most part. He went bowling with coworkers every other week, out of a sense of responsibility to himself as much as to his coworkers.
Sometimes he would sit in a cafe and drink a beer or sip a coffee, watching people.
Sitting all alone
by my telephone
Waited all day
but that’s okay
I could wait all night
and that would be all right
for a woman like you
I would wait all my life
Sometimes I pull myself together
and I go downtown
I’m all dressed up
and I wander around
and I feel like a fool
I can’t stop thinking of you
When you’re all alone
this city’s so cruel
I walk along the river
until the stars come out
I sit by myself alone in the dark
and I wonder
Oh yes I wonder
I’m just like a child
but I am no fool
I know it’s over
(C)1980, TK Major
