The Waltons The Conflict Review
5The Waltons are out for a drive and they travel along the old road that is being turned into the Blue Ridge Parkway. It will be 400 miles long and connect to the Great Smokey Mountains. Zeb's brother Henry lived in these parts with his wife Martha Corrine along Blue Rock Creek. Zeb wants to stop and see if Martha Corrine and her son Boone are okay but the family wants to get back home before it gets too late. As they arrive home they find Boone and his grand-son Wade Walton waiting for them. They are there to ask there kin to help them stand against the government and the road that they want to build through their property.\n\n \nThe Waltons agree to offer their support but they won't bring their rifles as is requested of them. The next morning they arrive at Martha Corrine's. The girls help pick blackberries and are chased up a tree by Martha Corrine's hogs, the boys go off looking for arrowheads and John-Boy joins the rest of the adults in the war-council. As they discuss the details the men help themselves to some of Boone's moonshine. Olivia is none too pleased especially when John-Boy takes a swig. Martha Corrine says that the road builder Mr. Blake stopped by to warn them that the parkway will come down her drive through her house and tomato patch. John-Boy makes the offer to Martha Corrine that they can have as much land as they need on Walton's Mountain to raise their animals and grow their gardens. She thanks him but says that that is their mountain and this is theirs. Senator Lucas Avery comes by to advise Martha Corrine that he has done all that he can but the road will go through. He says though that the road crew will wait 3 days for her to go and look at the new housing that they are promised. She agrees to go see the house despite the protest fro the rest of her family.\n\n \n\nJohn asks John-Boy to stay behind to keep an eye on his Grandpa and to not let him get his hands on a rifle. Even though Wade is only 19 he has already served in the Marines aboard the U.S.S Saratoga aircraft carrier and is now married to Vera and expecting a child. John-Boy admires Wade's skill at carving wooden figurines.\n\n \n\nBack at the Walton's the children make blackberry ice-cream. Martha Corrine tells the Walton family about how she met Henry at the age of 10 when he was 11. She was married at the age of 15 to Henry. He served under Stonewall Jackson in the war of the North and South.\n\n \n\nThe next morning Zeb and Boone go fishing, Wade and John-Boy cut down a tree to make a crib for Wade and Vera's baby. The two young men finally connect when they realize that they were gifted with creativity that flows through their blood. Wade takes John-Boy to see the spot where he plans to build a house for Vera and him.\n\n \n\nMartha Corrine goes and sees the new house and although she marvels at the electric lights she can't shake the words of her husband that you live by you land and die by your land. She says that she doesn't like a home built by strangers. Meanwhile Blake goes back on his word and orders his men to begin blasting again. Grandpa and Boone get riled up and begin to make their stand against the approaching bulldozers. John-Boy can't believe that they have stepped back 100 years in time to protect their land with rifles like he has heard in stories from the past. John makes an impassioned case to the Parks and Highways Committee. Martha Corrine writes a letter to President Roosevelt asking him to bury her remains up on her mountain with the rest of her kin when she passes on. She then goes to visit the grave site of her husband Henry who died in the age of 76 in 1921. Finally Blake and some State Troopers arrive to deliver the eviction notice. John-Boy makes one last attempt to use reason. But when the guns start blazing John-Boy is shot in the torso. Grandpa throws down his rifle and runs to his side. John arrives in time to drive him to get medical attention. Martha Corrine asks for no more blood-shed and agrees to except their eviction. As they pack up their belongings she remembers how her home smelled when they first moved in and she gives her spinning wheel to the Walton girls. Later that evening back at the Walton's as everyone says goodnight John and Olivia sing a song about the spinning wheel.