In the mid to late '50s I was a big fan of Roy Rogers. I always watched his show every time it was on our little black and white TV. It featured Roy and his horse Trigger, Dale Evans and her horse Buttercup, and their comic sidekick Gabby Hayes who sometimes rode his horse Phineas or drove an old military jeep he named Nellybelle. They usually either fought bad guys or rescued somebody from some dire situation.
There was also lots of singing of western themed songs on the show. Roy had a band called the Sons of the Pioneers. They sang and harmonized really well. When I'd lie in bed at night it would be real dark; the only light coming from the dial of the radio next to my bed. Whenever "Ghost Riders in the Sky" came on I would get kinda spooked but at the same time I liked it; a lot. They had a lot of good songs; "Tumbling Tumbleweeds", "Cool Water," and of course the show ended with "Happy Trails." I had a whole Roy Rogers outfit, cowboy hat, vest, chaps, toy guns, pajamas, and a lunch pail; with Roy Rogers name on all of it.
So one day I'm waiting at the end of our driveway for the school bus to pick me up and take me to Loma Prieta Elementary school. The houses were so far apart in the Santa Cruz Mts. that there wasn't really a bus stop you walked to. They just picked you up at your house. So I climb aboard the bus and right there in the front seat are two hoods right out of one of those bad '50s movies about rebellious teenagers. Hair greased back, t-shirts with the sleeves rolled up, black pants, and a menacing sneer on their faces. I could almost hear the sleazy saxophone music in the background. As I walk by them one of them sticks out his foot and trips me, sending me to the floor. My Roy Rogers lunch pail goes flying. I pick myself up, grab my lunch, and find a seat. This went on for some time. Occasionally the bus driver would yell at the hoods but not much came of it. I learned their names were Ratnose and Clancy. They were much bigger than all the other kids on the bus and they were scary. Once, after getting an elbow to the ribs from Ratnose, I'm looking for a seat and this kid says I can sit with him.
His name was Jason and we became fast friends. He had lots of freckles, buck teeth, and always had his mouth open. He also had a tendency to drool on his shirt. He was a little older than me and told me not to worry about Ratnose and Clancy anymore; he'd take care of it. Sure enough the hoods left me alone. Maybe they didn't want to get drooled on.
One afternoon my Mom calls out to me from the kitchen, "Bobby, there's someone here to see you." I run to the door and its Jason asking if I can go to his house to play. I ask my mom and she says yes. We climb into his mom's car and off we go. His mom is talking non-stop and I thought she was talking to us in the back seat but Jason tells me no, she does this all the time. She was having a conversation with herself. We went for quite a ways and she finally turns off onto a gravel road. It winds up and up this mountain until we get to the very top.
I had never seen a house like this before; it's very large and it's round. There's a second story that was a little smaller with lots of windows; it too was round with a round roof. The house looked like a flying saucer built out of wood and glass. There were some old rusting cars and tractors off to one side by a dilapidated old barn. Jason opens up the big double doors and we go inside followed by his mom who, for the time being, has stopped talking to herself. Jason gives me a tour of the house and explains that his dad is an architect and he designed the house and built a lot of it himself. There's a huge sunken round living room and in the middle is a round fireplace with the metal chimney that looked like an upside down funnel suspended by chains from the ceiling. We went outside and played on the rusty tractors and pretended we were driving them. I really wanted to see the little turret type room on the second floor but Jason said that was off limits. That was his dad's office and no one was allowed up there. His mom fixed us some sandwiches for lunch and then drove me home.
This was repeated many times. They'd pick me up; the mom talking to herself; Jason and I would play on the tractors and then go home. Eventually Jason and his mom started giving me a ride to school and back which was great because that meant I didn't have to deal with Ratnose and Clancy.
Then one day they didn't show up and Jason wasn't on the bus. He wasn't at school either so I thought maybe he was sick. After several days he's back on the bus but he looks really different. His head was shaved including his eyebrows. There were cuts and lumps all over his head and he didn't look too happy. He told me his mom was sick and in the hospital and then he just turned away and looked out the window. I think he was crying. Several years later my mom told me that Jason's mom was put in a mental institution. My mom felt bad for letting me ride around with Jason's mom but she didn't know about the lady's mental problems and looking back on it, my mom told me any number of bad things could of happened to me.
We moved away and I don't know what became of Jason, his mom, or Ratnose and Clancy; not that I care much about those last two! I've still got a few Roy Rogers record albums and although my original cowboy outfit is long gone, I bought a boxed set of DVD's of some of his shows and I bought a reproduction of a Roy Rogers lunch pail. So sing along:
"Happy trails to you... until we meet again... happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then....."
The Roy Rogers Show - Happy Trails to You
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