>>> Now for my next question. How are Barney and Andy cousins? Aunt Bee >>> (Taylor) must be Andy's Aunt on his Father's side. Barney calls her Aunt Bee, but so does everyone else in town. Does anyone know the answer? I sure don't.
Let's analyze the situation. If Andy and Barney are FIRST cousins (which we don't know for sure, but let's assume this is the case) then there are four possibilities: A: Andy's father is the brother of Barney's father 2: Andy's father is the brother of Barney's mother c: Andy's mother is the sister of Barney's father IV: Andy's mother is the sister of Barney's sister We can rule out A immediately, because if that were the case then Andy and Barney would have the same last name. As you pointed out, Aunt Bee's last name is Taylor, so she must be the sister of Andy's father. We learn in "Aunt Bee's Invisible Beau" that Aunt Bee is not really Barney's aunt, because when Barney is trying to rile Andy to action, he says "... I can't figure you out, Andy. If Aunt Bee was my aunt, I wouldn't be staring out of windows, I'd drive straight over the Mt. Pilot ...." From this, we can rule out number 2, because is 2 were the case then Aunt Bee really would be Barney's aunt (Andy's dad, Barney's mom, and Aunt Bee would all be siblings). Thirdly, when Andy is about to meet Barney's cousin Virgil for the first time, Barney says Virgil is from his mother's side of the family. This implies that Andy does not know any of the relatives of Barney's mother, so this rules out IV. So, unless somebody comes up with a better analysis, I'm sticking with option c: Andy's mother and Barney's father are siblings. --Paul Mulik _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list [email protected] http://mail.wbmutbb.com/mailman/listinfo/wbmutbb_wbmutbb.com http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/
