August 14, 1998 - CAMPOUT

LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth

CAMPOUT: A Rehoboth Journal -- Happy Trails to Howdy Doody Time...

Its been a tough few weeks for Baby Boomer icons.

First we lost Roy Rogers, known to Gen Xers and thirty somethings for Double-R-Bar-Burgers, but to us boomers as the consummate TV cowboy.

I wonder how many of us FDAs (future dykes of America) used Roy Rogers to give our parents early warning signals. My mother should have known something was up when I threw a Halloween tantrum for being made to dress like fringe-skirted Dale, instead of pistol-packin Roy.

And when my sisters favorite toy was Betsy-Wetly, the doll whose sole claim to fame was wetting her pants, I could never understand why my parents thought my fixation with Roy Rogers and Trigger wasnt sensible.

Eventually I moved on to annoying my family by mooning over Annette instead of Frankie Avalon and relegated my Roy Rogers lunchbox to the junk heap.

Until we got word of Roys demise, I admit not having thought about him in years. Except, that is, for noticing the occasional tabloid photo of Trigger and Bullet (Roys German Shepherd) taxidermied for display at his Happy Trails Museum.

When almost everybody I know sheepishly admitted to wondering if Dale planned to have Roy stuffed, too, I realized that Roy and Dale had been much better PR flaks than we ever imagined. I know Ill be watching the National Enquirer for an update.

Wed hardly had time to sing Happy Trails to Roy when we heard that Buffalo Bob Smith, Howdy Doodys faux cowboy sidekick, passed away at age 80. Since nobody but Bob ever accompanied Howdy on TV or to personal appearances, I had to conclude that on July 30 Howdy Doody drew his freckle-faced last breath as well.

H. Doody, 51, entertainer. You didnt see that in the obits. Now I hadnt spent quality time with Howdy in years, unless you count the occasional glimpse of him in grainy pre-video kinescopes on TV retrospectives. About a year ago I saw a poster for a nostalgic Howdy Doody personal appearance show right here at the Rehoboth Convention Center. Frankly, it struck me as unseemly for a woman of my age to want to go to the show, so I never even mentioned it to anyone.

But the truth is, Howdy meant a lot to me.

At age five I got to go to the TV studio where Howdy Doody was broadcast and sit in the Peanut Gallery. It was my very first live theatrical experience. Depending on how I feel about my own show business career at any given instant, that day either inspired me or screwed me up for life.

It was a seminal moment when I realized that the black and white Howdy I saw at home was actually a full color Howdy, who worked for a living. Whats more, Clarabell was an actor getting paid to do a job, albeit squirting kids with seltzer. That day in the Peanut Gallery formed the essence of my thinking that acting and directing were actually viable career choices. Howdy should have warned me. I was just getting over the shock of the Howdy thing when I heard about Lambchop. Man, that was pretty much all I could take. I loved Lambchop - the only good use Id ever seen for a gym sock. And what a trouper! Other 50=s superstars like Perry Como or Kukla, Fran & Ollie were long gone from our screens, but Lambchop and Shari Lewis (both of them still looking like a million bucks I might add) were still going head to head with the likes of Barney, not to mention Beavis and Butthead.

Psychologists were all over the radio explaining to parents how to tell their children about the untimely death of Shari Lewis and I thought, "Whos gonna explain it to me??"

A sadistic friend gave me the book On Women Turning 50 for my "forty-tenth birthday." While my inclination was to pitch it at her head, I actually found some valuable wisdom in it - like the news that my 40s were the old age of youth but my 50s are the youth of old age? I dont know if thats good, but its certainly catchy. And now that most of the icons from my first childhood can only be seen in the Smithsonian, I guess its time to start cultivating icons for my second childhood. Dixie Carter, who knocked >em dead at the beach last week with a great benefit concert for the Henlopen Theatre Project, would be a good place to start.

But in the meantime, if I were Bozo or Captain Kangaroo, Id start watching my cholesterol.

(Authors note: Thanks, Larry, for the phrase "forty-tenth birthday." I love it. I think we could avoid the Year 2000 computer glitch altogether if we consider Dec. 31, 1999 the dawn of 1990-ten.)

LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 8, No. 11, August 14, 1998.