I grew up on “The Lone Ranger,” and all those other Westerns filmed in the 1950s and early 1960s. Loved them all, “The Roy Rogers Show” (along with Dale Evans), “The Cisco Kid,” “Have Gun, Will Travel,” “Gunsmoke,” “Rawhide,” "Hopalong Cassidy," and more.
What I didn’t know then was that many of these programs offered fairly admirable presentations of right versus wrong, moral choices in which the hero, at least, worked things out for the best in the end. This is, for the most part, long gone from television and cinema.
One thing in particular about The Lone Ranger—he never rode alone. His faithful and intrepid friend Tonto, the Ranger’s Indian sidekick, more than once got the Ranger out of trouble. Back in the day Indians-then, Native Americans-now, didn’t get much credit, but Tonto was a man for all seasons, a man “to ride the river with.”
None of us can really go it alone and those of us who try usually if not inevitably fall on our nose. Check this new article for more on the subject: “Even The Lone Ranger Didn’t Go It Alone.”
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2012
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