Riding Again

Early on we have many exciting dreams about what we want to do with our lives.   Some of us want to be sports stars; some want to be soldiers, police officers or firefighters; some doctors and nurses.  The list can, and often does, go on and on, changing only with our newest life experiences and encounters.

I wanted to be the Lone Ranger – certain that the words I was reading in comic book pages were being transcribed directly from tales the masked man himself was sharing with someone preparing the story for my edification.  That belief, of course, was reinforced through the magic of our Motorola console radio, which filled our tiny living room with the wonderful sounds of his voice, the neighing of his great horse Silver, and the sonorous sounds of the narrator.  The series, which first came onto the airwaves around this time of year in 1933, was still going strong on radio stations everywhere when I was a small boy in the early 1950s, although it was about to be usurped by the TV show of the same name.  Either way, I was caught up in the wonderful stories each week and waited anxiously for their arrival.  In between, I read the comic books and dreamed of being like my hero.

 

Clayton Moore as The Lone Ranger
Silver as Silver

When I reached the ripe old age of 7 or 8  I accepted the fact that the Lone Ranger – at least as I knew him – wasn’t real.  At first I was disappointed.  But then I realized that the power of words could make any dream reality.   I could be any character in any story, transported through time just by reading.    As the narrator always used to say:  “Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear!”

Writing, done right, can make it so. 

 

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