I am a child of the 50's-not like Robert Klein who came of age in them, but I was born as they were getting started. I used to watch The Dinah Shore Show ("See the USA in your Chevrolet") a fifteen-minute black and white TV program every afternoon sitting on a coffee table in my parent's apartment in Electchester, South Flushing, Queens, New York.
Despite what you may think reading the above paragraph, America wasn't so poor that we couldn't afford half-hour programs and/or color broadcasts. That was how the world was, and those of us just starting out in it accepted it because we knew nothing else (and some of us know even less today).
The other show I can remember watching was the (Original) Mickey Mouse Club, and most days getting into my cowboy outfit to better enjoy The Adventures of Spin and Marty and all its succeeding permutations. I sang along with the theme song I knew by heart, making up in volume what I lacked in pitch.
I had a six-shooter that never ran out of bullets and a bandana whose color matched my cowboy hat. I'm pretty sure I didn't have spurs (that jingle, jangle, jingle) not because I didn't go rolling merrily along but because Mom was afraid they'd catch on the carpet and I wasn't the most stable of walkers. Still am not.
Speaking of stable, and horses who hang out in the paddock, that might be when my lifelong (so far) desire for pony rides on my birthday first began. I envied Spin and Marty out there on The Triple R Ranch roping and calf-wrestling, to say nothing of campfire-sitting-around, and, of course, snipe hunting. Yessir, pardner, us greenhorns sure were gullible.
What I can't explain is my studious avoidance of every opportunity to visit a dude ranch and bust a few Broncos (Denver or otherwise) or brand a few Longhorns. Not sure how I would be able to persuade 'those little doggies' to move along, come to think of it, but dude ranches are quite the hot commodity, more so now than at any time since Billy Crystal and Jack Palance.
Well, pardner, that's enough jabber-jawing for one day. Don't squat on your spurs and I hope to spit in your mess kit.
-bill kenny
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