The Unextinguishable Light

It’s been a year. How could that be at all possible? How could days quickly turn into months and then remind you of all the time that has passed? Wasn’t it just yesterday that a visit with my dad ended with a wonderful evening with the two of us sharing a few quiet minutes together? I think my dad knew then that it would be our last visit; although the conversation never alluded to that.  I certainly didn’t allow myself to think anything other than that we would talk again at Thanksgiving….. & Christmas too. But that yesterday was our last together. Just two days later he would be gone. And now 365 other yesterdays have come & gone since that night. Even so, I sometimes still catch myself reaching for the phone to just say hello. Then I remember…..his phone no longer rings. The lamp by his chair no longer gives off light.  But through that silence and that darkness a light does shine. A light that can’t be dimmed by a thousand yesterdays. The light that I will always carry in my heart…illuminated by the memories I will never forget ..

Happy Trails

He was "The King Of The Cowboys" & she was "The Queen Of The West". Together they made my  Saturday mornings and the Saturdays of countless other youngsters a very special time. In the area where I lived as a boy it was 11:30 until noon that took me to a place that kids don't have a chance--or maybe don't even want to go anymore. But I would be in front of the TV in plenty of time to hear the announcer introduce my favorite 30 minutes of the week:

"The Roy Rogers Show," starring Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys; Trigger, his golden palomino; and Dale Evans, Queen of the West; with Pat Brady, his comical sidekick; and Roy's wonder dog, Bullet.

Each week Roy & Dale would fight the "bad guys" with the help of the bumbling Pat Brady driving around in his jeep named "Nellybelle". Roy's transportation was always more reliable in the saddle of the most famous palomino in TV history, Trigger.

And so when I read today that The Roy Rogers Museum in Branson, MO. sold off all of its contents at auction & was closing its doors for good I couldn't help but feel a sense of loss. I had never been to the museum & only saw Roy & Dale "in person" years ago when they performed at The Big E in Springfield, Massachusetts ...but still, there it was, this sense of losing something from your youth that you can never get back. The reports of the closing & auction stated that Roy told his son (who was in charge of the museum) that if it ever stopped turning a profit to sell everything off. I guess in the age of DVD's & video games a place like Roy's museum wasn't very high on the list of places that today's kids want to go. But me, I took a minute to go to You Tube just to hear that introduction one more time and spend a few minutes at the "Double R Bar Ranch"......and didn't leave until Roy & Dale sang "Happy Trails" to me one more time. 

http://youtu.be/eEqUyNaSdvg

Time To Act

We need to step back & THINK for a moment about the legislation in front of our lawmakers in Washington right now. I don’t know if any of you caught the Newtown, CT segment of 60 minutes last night, but if you didn’t you should search it out on line and view it because it goes to the very heart of why this legislation was put forth in the first place. Full disclosure: I am not a gun owner. Not a hunter. I have never been to a shooting range. I have only pulled the trigger of a rifle once in my life. That was in my youth as a Boy Scout. Despite all of that I, like most Americans, feel the time has come for a common sense approach to gun ownership in this country. Reasonable arguments are valid on both sides. The problem is some of the discussion on the side of gun owners is not reasonable. Why anyone would argue against background checks before a gun can be purchased is beyond me. Simply put: we have to start somewhere. I don’t understand the need for assault weapons outside of the military & police force but that should be a separate discussion at a later time. Let’s get a handle on those who own, buy & sell weapons first. Law abiding gun owners should be backing this provision! It may not be the perfect answer but what’s wrong with making it more difficult for those who should not have a weapon in their possession to get one in the first place?  Pass the check, have the freedom to buy. Fail & we close off ownership to someone who we all should be happy, gun owner or not, was refused the right to buy a gun. It won’t completely stop the wrong people from having a weapon but even if it has the smallest effect on keeping guns out of the wrong hands, in my mind it is worth it. If you don’t think so…..it’s time for you to look into the eyes of those parents who lost their children in Newtown and tell them why.