Sam Jones has invited his friend Mario from Italy to come and help work the farm. What Sam did not anticipate was that Mario would bring his father and his sister along for the trip.

Andy and Sam have decided that Goober needs a girlfriend. Goober is not actively opposed to the idea, but he is not the kind of man who pursues things with great strategic clarity.

Sam Jones has a son named Mike, and Mike has attached himself to Opie Taylor with the intensity that younger kids sometimes direct toward older ones they admire. Opie is patient with it to a point.

Sam Jones is a farmer and a newcomer to Mayberry in the sense that he has not been woven into the town's fabric for decades the way everyone else has. He is capable, decent, and well-regarded, but he is still finding his footing.

Howard’s mother is getting married. This is a development that would have seemed implausible not long ago.

It is Emmett and Martha Clark's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and Emmett wants to mark it properly. He has decided on a mink coat, which is a more extravagant gesture than Emmett typically makes.

Andy discovers that Helen, the woman he loves and expects to marry, was apparently arrested years ago. The record shows an association with a known gangster.

Aunt Bee has been taking flying lessons. Not because she needed to, not because anyone suggested it, but because she decided she wanted a moment that was entirely her own.

Goober hears that Andy is taking Aunt Bee and Opie to an auto show in Raleigh and invites himself along. He also happens to run into an old friend from mechanics school who appears to be doing quite well.

Barney is back in Mayberry with what might be his most ambitious idea yet. He has learned that American and Soviet officials are holding a summit meeting somewhere in the region, and Barney has somehow gotten himself involved in the logistics.

A five-hundred-dollar bequest has been left to the Mayberry church, and now the congregation has to decide what to do with it. This sounds like good news, and in some ways it is. But money has a way of surfacing disagreements that good manners usually keep buried.

Opie has his first real job. He is working at the drugstore and he takes it seriously in the way that first jobs tend to mean more than later ones because the newness of the responsibility is still fresh.

Emmett Clark runs the fix-it shop in Mayberry. He is good at it and he likes it. His wife Martha has a brother who sells insurance, and that brother is doing noticeably well.

The manager of a local television station has heard about Aunt Bee's cooking. Specifically, he has heard that the food is exceptional and that the woman behind it has a certain quality that does not come from training or polish. He offers her a nightly cooking segment on his station, and she accepts.

When Goober hears that Wally is putting the station up for sale, something in Goober stirs. This is his place in the world. He does not want to watch someone else take it over.

Howard watches a travelogue about life on a small Caribbean island and something in him shifts. The images of sun and simplicity and a life with no particular obligations settle into his imagination.

Andy is sick. This is not supposed to happen, not because Andy is invincible but because a town like Mayberry needs its sheriff functioning and nobody has really thought through what happens when he is not.

Aunt Bee's cousin Bradford Taylor is coming for a visit, and by the way Aunt Bee tells it, Bradford has done very well for himself. He is a successful man who has seen the world and made something of his life.

Howard Sprague has been seeing Millie Hutchins for about three months. It is going well by most measures, well enough that Howard decides the time has come to propose.

Andy Taylor is thinking about the future. Opie is growing up and college is not as far away as it used to seem. The sheriff's salary is steady but not lavish, and Andy starts looking for a way to build up a little extra.