Published Wednesday, April 16, 2008 9:11 AM
Updated Wednesday, April 16, 2008 9:12 AM

 

Watts Line 4/17/08

Gators, westerns, weekends


We spent Friday and Saturday on Kiawah with the Hubster’s brother and sister-in-law.

A fair amount of time we watched for the resident gator that lolls around on the edge of their yard when she crawls out of their pond. They call her Beulah. Sis-in-law law was gardening a few days ago and was scared very nearly out of her wits when Beulah roared. She described it as a really strong vibration that she (sis, not Beulah) felt as much as she heard it. “It sounded like a lion,” she said. (I’m not at all sure I knew that alligators roared.)

But, aside from the gator, there was lots of conversation. After dinner Friday night we got to talking about a recent family addition, a nephew named Coleman.

“It has a Western style ring to it,” sis’n law noted. We all agreed.

We all grew up in the age of shoot’em ups. Westerns. Lots of desert scenes and duels. And off we went following the trail into the past and remembering western TV shows. At first we couldn’t recall much more than “Gunsmoke” and “Roy Rogers.” Of course we all knew Marshall Dillon and Miss Kitty. And Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were fixtures in almost every household.

I was a big fan of “Annie Oakley.” In fact I still have my cowgirl hat that Momma sent off for when I was maybe six or seven years old. I was really excited about growing up to be a cowgirl. (I actually have seen a couple of cows up close and I rode a horse once.)

The names started bubbling up as we remembered one of my favorites, “The Cisco Kid,” and his sidekick Pancho. (It took lots of combining brainpower to pull all the names together.)

Sis’n law then recalled “Sky King.” I’d always liked that one, too, and remembered Penny, the niece character. I always wanted to be Penny. She seemed to be having a pretty exciting life for a girl. (There weren’t a lot of  “Tomb Raiders” out there in the 1950s.)

So we reminisced on. “Have Gun Will Travel,” was a good one. I had actually come across that a couple of years ago on an oldies station and had watched with amazement at the violence and raunchy theme of the show. It was brutal. Not the good clean fun that we often reminisce about when we think of the good old days of TV BEFORE the days of sex and violence. This was rough stuff. In fact, I quickly decided that “Have Gun Will Travel” would never be allowed on the air today.

The list got longer with Wyatt Earp and Hopalong Cassidy and his horse Topper. (Hubster liked that one.)

There was “The Rifleman” who was raising a child on his own.

“Wagon Train” and its famous “didn’t we see that rock formation three days ago?” line. The heartthrob Rowdy Yates of “Rawhide” morphed into THE Clint Eastwood.

The list was long with “The Lone Ranger” coming in near the top with his scout Tonto. I always thought Tonto was a whole lot smarter than the Ranger.

But the bottom line was that there were an awful lot of westerns and not a whole lot else. And that included Saturday morning and every night.

But Saturday night was reserved for “Gunsmoke.” I remember that particularly because one Saturday night I came down with a rash on my hands that was itching so bad I wanted to claw the skin off my hands. The doctor was called (back then they made house calls) and he asked how serious it was. Finding out that it was a rash and not likely to kill me in the next hour, he said he’d be right over – as soon as “Gunsmoke” ended.

That pretty much explains the popularity of the Westerns. It’s a genre that unites the first generation of TV watchers. The options are so many these days I have to wonder what the unifying theme of conversations will be at the dinner table 50 years from now.

Contact Judy Watts at 873-9424 ext. 220 or jwatts@journalscene.com.