When I was four or five if I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up my first choice would have been a Navy Frogman. Now a boy's imaginations wont be limited to just one future so the only other choices I knew were an Astronaut or a Cowboy. It was at age five the birthday gifts I remember well were Roy Roger's six-shooters and a stick pony I immediately rode off on into grand adventures. My kindergarten teacher thought I was confused that it was dress up day when I wore my Cowboy outfit to school soon afterwards.
It was about 1962 when my parents invested in two sets of encyclopedias, Colliers and the World Book. They came in spaced apart shipments, not at the same time so their arrivals were an event. Now as I could not read, the boxes they came in were more of an interest to me than the books were. One I found fit perfect inside my little red wagon I made into my own John Wayne "War Wagon" when I could get my aunt to pull me in so I could fight off Injuns. Years later I actually saw the wagon at The Universal Studio's tour in Los Angeles.
We lived on North East 23rd Street during this time, my best friend Tommy West (my age) and his brother Mickey lived North West of me not too far away. It was there we played Cowboys and Indians in a cow pasture next to his home.
When the rodeo came to town it was a home town event that included a parade. Back in 1962 Smiley "Frog" Burnette (Gene Autry's Sidekick)rode in the parade that year, visiting for the rodeo and they had him meet the crowds after the parade. It was next to the historic Baker Hotel my sister Robin and I sat his lap for a picture. I remember it well, I wasn't familiar with him and my only experience of sitting on a fat mans lap was Santa Clause. I remember looking up at him, his funny old trade mark hat and thinking that someone was trying to pass him off as Santa to me. The event none the less is imbedded in my mind, a grand day in old West Town of Mineral Wells, Texas.
Other than Tommy there were no other kids around so living in my imagination became my closest ally and being a Cowboy living in the place where the Old West actually was, I was only separated by time. I was actually born in the next County which was Parker County, named after Chef Quanah Parker the famous Comanche leader who lived in the area I played in. I often was on the search for arrow heads from his hunting party days but never had any luck.
Just North of 23rd Street, I had no idea I lived just nine miles from Oliver Loving's Ranch, the Texas Cattleman portrayed in Lonesome Dove as Augustus 'Gus' McCrae played by Robert Duval. In early October 2016 I visited the Ranch and the State marker that tells of the Ranch. The current owner came out to meet me and pointed out the old well and area of the bunk house. The place I played as a boy, Loving and his men most likely rode through or grazed cattle at. He was buried in the next town of Weatherford, Texas along with a friend Bose Ikard after his partner Charlie Goodnight carried his body from Fort Sumner New Mexico back to his Weatherford.
Bose Ikard's grave marker reads near the same from the mini-series Lonesome Dove, {never shirked duty or disobeyed an order, rode with me in many stampedes, participated in three engagements with Comanches, splendid behavior. C}. Just a century before where I played as a boy, the history of the Old West was made.
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