The study of Roy Rogers has become something of a religious obsession for me. For an entire year, I watched at least one RR movie a day. I have watched some of them over and over without loss of interest. I should mention that my obsession with RR movie viewing began when analog went digital, and I lost my television signal. I began buying old RR movies on the internet, because basic cable in my rural area is just too expensive for my retirement income. I was intrigued by the number of phrases that I occasionally use without realizing they entered my vocabulary from RR movies. I was intrigued that goals of the RR Riding Club were actions I had followed all my life. RR told us to always look for safety hazards. I REALLY do this. RR told us to be kind to animals. I began rescuing fallen birds as a young child. Now I have a menagerie of species on my acreage. I watched videos of Roy and Dale with their 9 children and ... Read >

The study of Roy Rogers has become something of a religious obsession for me. For an entire year, I watched at least one RR movie a day. I have watched some of them over and over without loss of interest. I should mention that my obsession with RR movie viewing began when analog went digital, and I lost my television signal. I began buying old RR movies on the internet, because basic cable in my rural area is just too expensive for my retirement income. I was intrigued by the number of phrases that I occasionally use without realizing they entered my vocabulary from RR movies. I was intrigued that goals of the RR Riding Club were actions I had followed all my life. RR told us to always look for safety hazards. I REALLY do this. RR told us to be kind to animals. I began rescuing fallen birds as a young child. Now I have a menagerie of species on my acreage. I watched videos of Roy and Dale with their 9 children and imagined my own ragged childhood transformed as one of their adopted kids. Yes, I am the Queen of Obsession. I even sent out xmas cards with my Photoshop face pasted into their family scene. I consider myself the lost and recently found, 10th child. I even emailed their oldest daughter (my pretend sister) and invited her to stay at my place if she ever gets to Seattle! RR said he wasn't an actor. He would simply ask himself, "What would Roy do?" He did this his entire life, creating himself as he wanted to be...as he chose to be. My religion is that I too can create who I want to be during what may be the last decade of my life. We can steer a course, make a plan and try to steer towards it. Roy liked cartoon Popeye the sailorman. " I Y'am what I Y'am," Roy and Popeye used to say. Rather, we become that which we choose, if we are smart enough to choose. He liked beer, but did not drink, fearing it might be caught on camera. He chose to be a non-smoking, non-drinking role model for kids at a time when everyone was lighting up cancer sticks on screen. Even the news broadcasters smoked during interviews on 1950's T.V. "Music ....helped me celebrate the good times and it helped me get through the bad times," wrote Dale Evans Rogers. Roy and Dale's song recordings from 1936-1991, have lyrics that keep me going too. If I am busy, just a little too busy where I cause myself to stumble...the lyrics come to mind, "Easy does it. If you don't I fear we'll hit a bump. Dance it with ease. Slow if you please. Take it easy." It becomes my mantra until my actions do in fact slow down. If I am angry with someone, I sing lyrics from 1944, "....The nerve of some people. Acting just like they know it all, of all the nerve...." Sometimes I ask myself if this is what I want to be feeling or doing, should this day be my last. I don't want to be feeling anger, for sure. It's okay that I am shoveling livestock poop on my last day, because someone has to do it. Then I remind myself that death is okay as I sing, "I'm headin' for the last roundup." I have left instructions that if I am ever in a coma I want my IPod with RR and DE songs. I can be happy 24/7, even if I am "locked in." I do often have their songs playing all day long. Simple, wise, uplifting lyrics. In 1946, Roy sang, "It's funny how a boy will dream, what he'll do when he's a man. He'll be a clown or acrobat. He's always got a plan. But when the years go flyin' past, and he's grown up like the rest, then his dreams are always of the days he loved the best. And every now and then I get to thinkin' how I wish I was a kid again....Gee, I wish I was a kid again...with a willow fishin' pole, down at the old swimmin' hole, doin' all the things that I did then...." Daughter Cheryl says and writes in her book that Roy was very much about the "now moment" and he never held a grudge, because a grudge comes from a past moment. This I can declare: In every single “now” moment we must pause, focus, and reflect upon “the good” in our individual experience, for life is fragile. Parts of Roy's life history may have disappeared. Even his kids didn't know who his first wife was...he didn't remember her name, or so he told daughter Cheryl. I've always wondered what that first gal thought as she saw him rise to fame. He was once on the cover of time magazine, listed by children as their favorite hero next to Abraham Lincoln and a few others. He was the only movie star to have recognition in that late 1940's survey. Part of Roy's life is fabrication. He told stories of how he asked Dale to marry him...told them so many times over his near 87 years...and the story changed just a little from the original, to make it more entertaining in subsequent versions. I'm certain he came to believe the later versions of every story he told in interviews. I compare this to Jesus and how parts of his life were lost in history. Roy was born Leonard Style. He became Roy by choice. He changed his name to Dick Weston as a singer and later smuggled himself onto the Republic Pictures lot when he was 26, to audition for a part in a movie. Republic saw his charisma right away and dubbed him Roy Rogers, gave him a horse (Trigger) and the rest is history. Later they dubbed him "King of the Cowboys." Show Less <