At home in Hazzard

“Breaker One, Breaker One, I might be crazy, but I ain’t dumb! Craaazy Cooter comin’ at ya! Ya’ll home on the Hazzard net? Come on.” — American actor, politician, playwright, and essayist Ben Jones (1941-) as mechanic Cooter Davenport on the CB radio in “The Dukes of Hazzard” (1979-1985)

As the years pass, it seems like more and more pieces of my childhood are slipping away at an ever-increasing rate.

Following the June 11 passing of pop rock Beach Boys co-founder, songwriter, producer, bassist, keyboardist, and co-lead singer Brian Wilson, the most recent pop culture loss to blip on my radar was last week’s passing of 79-year-old actor Rick Hurst (1946-2025), who played Deputy Cletus Hogg in 55 episodes from 1979-82 on “The Dukes of Hazzard,” in addition to two made-for-TV Dukes reunion movies in 1997 and 2000.

During its 147-episode run, at its peak, “The Dukes of Hazzard” garnered some 20 million viewers weekly on Fridays, myself included.

In terms of waxing nostalgic in dinner conversation around the dinette table about our dream TV childhood homes, where my wife pines for joining the fictional historical drama of the Depression-era “Waltons” in the backwoods of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, I’m a Waylon Jennings “good ol’ boy” hankering to ride around in a souped-up ‘69 Dodge Charger stock car — the “General Lee” — as part of the extended Duke family in the action comedy TV series “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

As author and relationship counselor John Gray’s 1992 bestseller relationship book title goes, “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.” Outside of a shared attraction for the land of Dixie, I’m from Mars, and she’s from Venus in regard to our TV families, although she did serendipitously marry a John-Boyish journalist and book author 39 years ago.

As a 13-year-old when the Dukes made their Charger-jumping debut on CBS as a mid-season replacement on Jan. 26, 1979, I was already primed to step through the TV screen and into Hazzard County, Georgia, having spent much of my childhood riding in my dad’s coolest-car-EVER ‘68 Dodge Charger R/T.

And as a red-blooded teen, pining for a cousin like spirited Boar’s Nest waitress and singer-songwriter and journalist wannabe Daisy Duke, an autographed photo of Catherine Bach as Daisy Duke in her short shorts “Daisy Dukes,” posing with General Lee at the 1980 Milwaukee Speed and Custom Car Show, was the next best thing to living on wise Uncle Jesse Duke’s farm on the outskirts of Hazzard.

Said the show’s Balladeer, Waylon Jennings, of Daisy in the “One Armed Bandits” premiere episode, “She drives like Richard Petty, shoots like Annie Oakley, and knows the words to all of Dolly Parton’s songs.”

As the Duke Boys would say, “Yee-haw!”

Growing up in a quiet, tame subdivision development of cookie-cutter ranch homes and tri-levels along the Lake Michigan shore in Caledonia, north of Racine, every Friday night, I yearned for the ravine-jumping adventure of being a 20-something Duke cousin to Bo and Luke, two modern-day Robin Hoods driving around the dusty roads of Hazzard in their stock car Charger as they thwart the nefarious plans of crooked county commission and monopolistic local kingpin Jefferson Davis “Boss” Hogg and his bumbling but lovable half-hearted henchman, Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane.

The classic fairy tales of yore always ended with “and they lived happily ever after,” and likewise, every episode of “The Dukes of Hazzard” had a happy ending — of wrongs righted, good overcoming evil, and the Duke family triumphing over Boss Hogg.

After seven seasons of viewing on CBS and return trips back to Hazzard via VHS, DVD, and YouTube clips over the ensuing four decades, maybe there’s a little Duke blood in me after all.

At 60, I still wish life was like that. Even fairy tales sometimes come true.

News-Review freelance columnist Eric Johnson can be reached at eric@fyinorthwoods.com.