Oh, Those Cowboy Heroes!

MEMORY MONDAY

This blog post was swimming around in my subconscious yesterday morning as I woke up.  I don't know where the thoughts came from, they were just there, and they seemed perfect.

I grew up back in the 50s and 60s, when television was still black and white for anyone who wasn't filthy rich.  An only child in a middle income family, with two working parents--something of an oddity at the time--and an imagination that bubbled over would be a good description of me.  I grew up watching cowboy shows, because those were the shows, in addition to the Mickey Mouse Club and Captain Kangaroo, that were available the most.  

Howdy Doody, up there, with Buffalo Bob Smith, along with Clarabell the Clown, Mayor Phineas T. Bluster, Flub-a-Dub and more, kept kids in the Peanut Gallery entertained with puppetry and silliness.  (For those who don't know, Clarabell was played by Bob Keeshan aka Captain Kangaroo.)  To be honest, when thinking of all those Westerns I watched as a little girl, Howdy didn't even come to mind.  GASP!

I knew I'd forgotten many of the shows I watched, so it was Wikipedia to the rescue!  There were adult Westerns and kid Westerns.  Of course I was drawn to the kid ones at an early age.  I did a quick count of the early shows and came up with some thirty-five Westerns I watched on a regular basis from the early 1950s to the early 1960s.  Keep in mind that back in the olden days, we had THREE channels.

So here we go with a list: (Most watched in bold)

The Adventures of Jim Bowie     The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin     
The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok      Annie Oakley     Bat Masterson  
Broken Arrow     Bronco     Cheyenne     Circus Boy     Davy Crockett      Death Valley Days    
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre     Fury     The Gabby Hayes Show      The Gene Autry Show    Gunsmoke     Have Gun Will Travel     Hopalong Cassidy     Laramie     Lawman     The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp   The Lone Ranger     Maverick     My Friend Flicka      Rawhide  
 The Rebel     The Rifleman    The Roy Rogers Show     The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show   
Sky King     Sugarfoot     Texas John Slaughter     The Virginian    Wagon Train     Wanted: Dead or Alive   Zorro

Annie Oakley was one of my favorites.  She could ride and shoot like any cowboy.  Rin Tin Tin was a beautiful German Shepherd dog that saved Rusty, the little boy who was a part of the cavalry, and anyone else who needed saving. (Think Lassie.)  Fury and My Friend Flicka were all about a boy and his horse.  Or two boys and their horses, as it was.  Hopalong Cassidy was just, well, Hoppy, and I rarely missed it.  I still remember that big ol' white hat he wore.  The Lone Ranger?  What female's heart didn't pound at the sight of that masked man.  And Tonto, played by Jay Silverheels, wasn't all that bad, either.  Which brings us to Maverick, and I still adore James Garner and always will.  Sky King flew a plane and had a neice named Penny.  I was envious.  Zorro, too, had a mask, and was a part of Disney.

Fess Parker played both Davy Crocket and, later, Daniel Boone.  Circus Boy starred a little boy named Mickey Braddock, who later became Micky Dolenz of The Monkees (1960s music group, for all you youngsters).  Stars were born.  Stars faded, and some went on to other things.  Tom Tryon (Texas John Slaughter), became a author, writing Harvest Home, The Other, and Lady.  The first of those was a terrific horror book, similar to Stephen King's writing.  Bronco actor Ty Hardin's real name is Orison Whipple Hungerford Jr..  I learned that when I was 10 and he was a teen heartthrob.

Those were the good old days.  The good guys won, the bad guys lost, and the cowboy always got his girl.

Yes, there are many later TV Westerns not on the list.  Bonanza, The Big Valley, The High Chaparell, Here Come the Brides (considered a Western, but set in post-Civil War Seattle), Lonesome Dove, and many more.

How many did you watch?  If you're too young for many of these, ask your parents if they watched.  And head on over to Wikipedia for a full list of TV Westerns.


It's fun to take a look back at the things we enjoyed, long ago.  There's a lot of difference between then and now, and we don't see nearly the Westerns on TV or in the movies as we once did.  But we do see a lot of Cowboy Heroes in romance books.  I wonder how many romance authors were raised on the Code of the West as I was?  Is it any wonder I have a soft spot for a soft-spoken, well-mannered cowboy?

The good old days are now. ~ Tom Clancy

Family Gatherings

MEMORY MONDAYS

Great-Grandparents and their children & grandchildren.  Mid-1920s

It's that time of year when I start thinking of the Good Ol' Days.  Holidays do that, and with Thanksgiving only a few days away, those memories of my family's holiday get-togethers come tumbling back through my mind.

I'm not technically a member of the genealogy of my family.  I'm adopted.  But my adopted family is all I've ever known, and I'm proud to be a part of them, even though I won't ever be listed in the official genealogy records.  I don't mind.  It's still my family.

My grandmother was the oldest girl of seven children.  Her grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1886 and settled on the farmland of Kansas.  She passed away when I was six months old, so I don't remember her.  But I have known most of her brothers and sisters, my great-uncles and great-aunts.  And their kids and their kids' kids.  I have a LOT of cousins.

The family enjoyed getting together and did so often.  The photo on the right was taken in the late 1930s.  The bib-overalls are proof that this was a farming family, although the photo was taken in the city at my grandparents' house.  I love this picture, because it's the house where I grew up, after my grandparents passed away.  The boy in the overalls standing with his hands in his pockets is my uncle.  My mother's younger brother.  As it is with many families now, the men would gather in one spot, while the women gathered in another--usually the kitchen!

Thanksgiving and Christmas were always big family affairs when I was growing up.  As many as possible would gather for a big dinner out in the country on one of the farms.  Quite often it would be at the home  of one of my Great-aunts, Aunt Dorothy or Aunt Lucy.  Lucy had a twin, Louis, but I didn't see much of him.  It was those two Great-aunts and their families who celebrated the holidays together.  There was never a lack of good food.  Everyone brought something.  My mom was often the one who cooked and brought the turkey, so I'd always wake up to the smell of roasting turkey on holiday mornings.

They were a noisy bunch.  Talking, joking and laughing went on throughout the day.  When everyone had stuffed themselves, but still sneaked an olive, celery stick or carrot, or another slice of homemade pie, they cleared the table, washed the dishes.  Once the chores were done, the grownups sat at the table for an afternoon and evening of playing cards.  Pitch was always the card game played, and I've never learned how to play it.  The level of sound would go up, and we kids could often hear the friendly arguments and shouts, while we climbed trees and scouted out the livestock outside.  I remember bottle feeding lambs and gathering eggs, which I detested, convinced that if a hen pecked me, I'd get chicken pox.  That proved to be untrue, of course, even though I did have chicken pox when I was 10.

As they evening grew later, talk of going home would begin, but it would take some time before everyone could tear themselves away from the good company and that last piece of Aunt Dorothy's chocolate pie.  When we kids were older, we'd have Aunt Dorothy bring out the wood folding table.  Four of us would sit at it and ask the table (spirit) questions.  The table would tilt on two legs, then drop down to "knock" once or twice for yes or no.  I've discovered mine wasn't the only family that did this, so we weren't the only "crazy" ones.

The drive down to the farm had seemed hours long, but it was barely 25 miles.  On the way home, as we drove in the dark through the small town that would one day be where I finished growing up, we followed a diagonal road shortcut that appeared to lead straight into the big grain elevator.  Of course it didn't end up at the elevator, instead leading to the north-south road that would take us home.  It wouldn't be long before I fell asleep in the quiet of the night, only to be roused, sleepy and grumpy when we arrived home.  Then off to bed, thinking of how fun and happy the day with family had been, eager for the next holiday.

I hope your memories of long-ago are as happy as mine!

Family is not an important thing. It's everything. ~ Michael J. Fox