Cowboys and Indians had been replaced by Robin Hood and his Merry Men so horses weren’t so crucial to a full day of play. Even so, there was a forest about a half mile away and I used to ride my Beauty in there, sometimes by myself, and sometimes with kindred spirits from the next block over. I’m pretty sure I kept my invisible horse until I was seven or eight, although by then we had moved out of our crowded neighborhood and into the barren wastelands of suburbia.
Sometimes one of the other kids would volunteer to be a horse, so they’d get reins tied around their chest and would have to prance and neigh as they were “ridden” down the street. We all galloped down the streets and around the yards. Squished red berries and dirt was our friend, cuz of course you needed war paint and camouflage.Įveryone rode an invisible horse, so no one walked. And we could gather in a group of fearsome looking Cowboys and Indians and vanish all day without anyone wondering or worrying where we were staging our Custer’s last stand.
Those were the days, of course, when you could shoot a cap gun without having all the adults drop to the ground or call 911. The latter didn’t work very well, but add some hooting and feathers plucked from a duster and we looked pretty good. All the boys in the neighborhood played Cowboys and Indians all weekend and scorned the thought of the only other girl, Francis Campbell, and myself joining in the hooting and hollering until we got cap guns (thank you Chief) and learned how to make bows and arrows out of twigs and string.
My first real Halloween costume was a Dale Evans vest and a cowboy hat. On the movie front, anything with John Wayne or Randolf Scott had the two of us heading out to a Saturday afternoon matinee armed with popcorn and root beer. Gunsmoke and Death Valley Days bought me a whole hour, as did Bonanza! Even at a young age I learned to wrangle an extra half hour after bedtime, which was a seemingly inhumane 7:00 that kids today would laugh at, in order to watch one of the half hour westerns. And yes, we had neighbors inside and we had them out on the porch pressing their noses to the window to catch a glimpse of the new invention.īonanza, Paladin, Wanted Dead or Alive, Jim Bowie, Roy Rogers, Rawhide, The Virginian were all his favorite TV programs.
When he heard that Bonanza was going to be produced in color, he threw out the monthly budget and bought the first color TV on the block. I’m sure I’ve said it before but my Dad (the Chief) and I were huge fans of Westerns.
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