Waltons 6.6: “The Volunteer”

Airdate: 10/27/77

Ever-neurotic Erin, confused about her feelings for longtime beau, G.W., rejects his marriage proposal, sending him to enlist in the U.S. Army as the winds of war are a’ blowing. Guilt stricken and lonely, she insists on visiting him at his army base, much to the opposition of her father, who remembers what goes on at those army bases! She returns with the news that she and G.W. are “just friends” – bad news for him, with potentially worse to come if he is sent abroad.

Back to 1939, this is a wafer-thin story augmented by several subplots: the

Waltons smokehouse burns down (ah, the irony), Maud Gormley tries her hand at painting (and agent-baiting), and an agitated peacock ruffles everyone else’s feathers, until Grandpa find him a pea-hen to sooth his ornery ways.

David Doremus returns as G.W. Haines, who I still say bears more than a passing resemblance to Patrick Swayze.