George Pyle: Don’t pick on my cousin Gomer

FILE - In this Nov. 14, 1967 file photo, singer and actor Jim Nabors, best known for his role as Gomer Pyle on "The Andy Griffith Show," reads a book at his California home. Nabors was among the notable figures who died in 2017. (AP Photo/File)“How can you watch that stupid show?” I asked my father, in great pre-teen exasperation.

It troubled me no end that my old man — a smart guy who read The Atlantic, Albert Camus and all 11 volumes of Will and Ariel Durant’s “The Story of Civilization” — could happily sit there and tee-hee at such simple-minded dreck as “Gomer Pyle, USMC.”

Of course the reason that show — and not, say, “The Beverly Hillbillies” — bothered me so much was that people who…