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Mad Jack Hanks: Memories of listening for The Lone Ranger on the radio

Ahhhh…yes, gentle readers, the days of yesteryear. Running around the yard in late summer, playing cowboys and bad guys.

One of my siblings or my mom would step to the back porch and holler, “Jackie, The Lone Ranger is about to come on!”

I gotta’ tell ya that me and my compadres would head lickity split to our respective homes to sit by the radio. Usually, if memory serves me correctly, my heroes came on around 5, just before supper. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Roy and Dale and Gene, The Cisco Kid and many of the others, but I could not connect with them unless I went to the movies on Saturday.



That wasn’t always a possibility.

“I had never realized that the Ranger and Tonto never ever got a speck of dust on them even when fighting in the dirty corral. The Ranger never lost his hat.”

Now, lets take the Lone Ranger and Tonto of yesteryear and put them in our world today. It might go something like this:



After saving the ranch for the beautiful young rancher’s daughter who was grieving the loss of her father, who was found dead, from the crooked banker who was trying to get control of the ranch, the Lone Ranger and Tonto ride away…”High Ho Silver” in a cloud of dust.

I had never realized that the Ranger and Tonto never ever got a speck of dust on them even when fighting in the dirty corral. The Ranger never lost his hat. They were immaculate. Always immaculate!

But now, after leaving the ranch and riding about a mile away, the Long Ranger pulls Silver up and says to Tonto, “Tonto, amigo, you are getting a little ripe. I can smell you a mile away even upwind and I’m sure I don’t smell all that good myself. Let’s ride over to Miller’s Pond, take a bath and wash our clothes.”

“We do,” Tonto replies. After arriving at Miller’s Pond, Tonto says, “What me do now masked man?”

The Ranger replies, “You start a fire so we can dry our clothes, and I’ll bathe first while you stand guard.”

“Me do,” Tonto says.

The Ranger removes his gun belt, boots and spurs, hat and his clothes, but not his mask.

Tonto says, “You no take off mask to bathe?”

The Ranger replies, “Of course not, Tonto. You might not recognize me.”

About that time, a Bureau of Land Management rep rides up on a Moped and gives Tonto a citation for burning Federal lands and the Ranger gets one for being nude on Federal lands in a free flowing water way. The rep takes their guns, as they weren’t supposed to have firearms in that area.

There stands my hero, buck naked, except for the mask of course, no guns, but as soon as the Federal agent leaves, he sends Tonto for help. There is hope after all.

Right?

Never give up my friends. Never give up, but please do go ahead and take a bath at least once a week…OK? Stay tuned, check yer cinch on occasion, lay in the tall grass and keep yer powder dry and I’ll c. y’all, all y’all. ❖


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