The writer quotes from a poem when he spots the abandoned house. The poem was "The House with Nobody in It" by Joyce Kilmer.
A.J. Covington says that he remembers hearing Carl Sandburg recite his poem "Chicago," and that it "stirred up quite a hullabaloo." The poem first appeared in the March 1914 issue of Poetry magazine, the first of nine poems collectively titled "Chicago Poems." Many Chicagoans felt the poems were of a brutal nature and presented their city in an unfavorable light.
A.J. talks about Chicago being an "exciting place" when he lived there as a young man, and mentions the writers Sandburg, Anderson, Dreiser and Lindsay. During the early 20th century, Chicago enjoyed a heyday of literary expression, known as the "Chicago School." Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941), Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) and Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) were at the core of that school.
Despite what John-Boy says at the end, this is the first of two episodes to feature the character of A.J. Covington. The other is "The Abdication". As was wont with the Waltons a different actor played him in the second.
David Huddleston, who played A. J. Covington in this episode, also played Ep Bridges in The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.