- Narrator: [narration as John 'John Boy' Walton, Jr. reading from his journal] Nature, I think, intended my father to be a dreamer and a poet. Instead, he became the head of a large, hungry household. The one thing he feared and despised was debt, and yet it clung to him as devotedly as it clung to all of his neighbors. He tried never to borrow, never to buy anything on time, and never to fall behind on things like taxes and doctor bills. As careful as he was, there came a day in 1940 when he looked at his finances and was astounded by what he found looking back at him.