Return With Us Now to the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

Click and close your eyes. There’s nothing to see here.

Now, that’s what I call a theme song!
I remember wondering what “yesteryear” meant. It was a word I’d never heard anyone use.

But how exciting to hear that music, even now.
The Lone Ranger was one of my favorite cowboy shows.There were a lot of cowboy shows on TV, and some of them had girls on them that weren’t wearing prairie clothes all the time.

I  wished for a fringed outfit like the one Annie Oakley wore.She gave us girls someone to be when we played cowboys. A role model? Not exactly, but cowboys could be pretty boring if you couldn’t pretend to be Annie Oakley. Otherwise, you just stirred a pot or churned butter or fretted about Pa or sick cattle or something.

Outfits like Annie’s were for sale at a western wear store in Richmond called Green’s. It had a big (stuffed? plastic?) horse out front that looked like Trigger from the Roy Rogers show. We drove by it on the way to Sunday School every week.

I didn’t get an outfit, but I could pretend to be Annie anyway.

It’s been fun to return to yesteryear as I near the end of my first month of this project.

But back to the Lone Ranger…
I wonder if, as Lyle Lovett suggests in my all-time favorite song, Tonto would ever really say, “Kemosabe, kiss my ass. I bought a boat. I’m going out to sea…

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