the latter removed as sheriff (as revenge for getting a speeding citation which he neglected to pay) ("Andy on Trial"), Barney redeems himself and Andy with a speech defending Andy and his record as sheriff. He explains how much of a benefit Andy is to Mayberry; then - in a rare display of candor and a departure from his usual insistence on following the letter of the law - he explains what Andy had been trying to teach him from the moment Barney first became a deputy: that a lawman does better in dealing with people when he goes more by the heart than by the book, thereby allowing Andy to remain sheriff. Biography In a few early episodes in the first season, Andy and Barney comment that they are cousins (initially as part of a joke implying that this relationship is responsible for Barney being hired as deputy), but this relationship is rarely mentioned later, and it is sometimes suggested in later episodes that they are not related. Genetics aside, Barney and "Ange" (as he frequently addresses Andy, a derivation from Knotts' real-life nickname for Griffith) are best friends, having grown up together in Mayberry, and graduated from the same class at Mayberry High School in 1948. Barney maintains warm relations with Andy's son Opie and his Aunt Bee. Although graduating from high school in 1948, both Barney and Andy claim to have served in the military. Andy was stationed in France during "the war" and Barney was a file clerk who never left the United States (he stated that "me and this other fella ran the PX library" on Staten Island). Barney was nevertheless proud of his war record: "I did my part in helping to whip the dreaded Hun", he boasted in the episode "Quiet Sam." Andy administered Barney his oath of office as deputy and issued him his gun in August 1953. Barney is mentioned as residing in a few places during the course of the show. In the second season episode "Sheriff Barney," his address is given at 411 Elm Street. By the fourth season episode "Up in Barney's Room," he's residing in Mrs. Mendelbright's boarding house (where she forbids him from owning either a hot plate or light bulb over 40 watts). During his vacations, he takes a room at the Raleigh YMCA, as first mentioned in the third season episode "Andy and Opie,