Where Oliver Found His Place ~ Rural Delivery essay on rural life in modern-day America by Michael Hofferber

Where Oliver Found His Place

Lisa was made for shopping Macy's and Saks 5th Avenue. Where will she shop in Hooterville? Sam Drucker's store?

The Stores!

Oliver the gentleman farmer is blinded by his obsession. He can't see what a shambles of a farm he's purchased from an insatiable con, Mr. Haney. He's pestered into hiring a live-in farmhand, Eb, who works slowly and calls him "Dad."

The neighbors are a bunch of wacky eccentrics, led by the Zwiffels and their multi-lingual television-watching pig, Arnold. Even the scatterbrained country agent, Hank Kimball, is more than a bit peculiar. And almost everyone in town is in a betting pool to see how many days it takes before Oliver moves back to New York.

Fresh Air!

Lisa cannot imagine what life will be like on the Haney Place. She is the daughter of the former King of Hungary, after all, and used to opulence and privilege. The city is her birthright.

Times Square!

This is still the 1960s, however, and a wife's place is at her husband's side, as Oliver testifies:

You are my wife!"

Lisa had forgotten about the Hungarian Parliament's "Big Dumb Law of 1924," which stated: "All Hungarian women have to do whatever their husbands want them to do, no matter how dumb it is."

Goodbye city life.

And so the Haney Place becomes the Douglas Farm -- with all its clutter, fallow fields, and telephones mounted atop telephone poles -- for six television seasons. Oliver struggles gamely to make his farm a success while Lisa brings some graciousness and finer things of life to their rural experience. They stand side by side, in a parody of American Gothic, and declare:

Green Acres, we are there!

Rural Delivery
Commentaries and advice
on rural living
by Michael Hofferber

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Green Acres
The Complete First Season (1965-66)

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The Complete Second Season (1966-67)

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The Complete Third Season (1967-68)

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