King of the Cowboys

My mother died when she was 34 years old. Prior to that she was in a T.B. sanitarium for several years. My little brother and I visited her once a month. We couldn't touch her. This was just before the widely accepted use of penicillin and other antibiotics. The way patients were routinely treated was to separate them from society.

Every year Roy Rogers came to the sanitarium. He visited with the patients inside the sanitarium. In the afternoon he performed for the families. But more than that he talked with us. He let us pet Trigger.

Even after he became world famous he continued to make his annual visits to the sanitarium.

In the mid 1990s, fifty years after my mother's death, a man came to our home seeking my Real Husband's counsel. This strange man was an entertainer. In fact, he was a successful Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas.

One evening, after their session, I was trying to make small talk with the person who seemed very different from me. I told him about my experience with Roy Rogers.

A few weeks later there was a knock on my door. There he was with a brown envelope in his outstretched hand. As it turns out he had made an arduous trip from Las Vegas to the Roy Rogers ranch in order to bring me a gift. Inside the envelope were pictures of Roy, Trigger and Dale. They were all signed but one in particular warmed me. It was inscribed with my name (an unusual one) and beneath that it said, "Happy Trails to You, Roy."

Now I'm not naive enough to think that Roy Rogers actually signed the photos. He was old and ill by then. But maybe he did!

The remarkable thing to me in this story is that the Elvis Impersonator listened to my story and did a kind thing.

I never saw him again.

But if he's by any chance reading this let me just give him this personal message:

Happy Trails to You, Elvis!