Roy Rogers
Week Thirty-eight: Roy Rogers
Sometimes you dream, sometimes it seems
There’s nothing there at all
You just seem older than yesterday
And you’re waiting for someone to call
You draw the curtains and one thing’s for certain
You’re cozy in your little room
The carpet’s all paid for, God bless the TV
Let’s shoot a hole in the moon
Oh, Roy Rogers is riding tonight
Returning to our silver screens
Comic book characters never grow old
Evergreen heroes whose stories were told
Oh the great sequin cowboy who sings of the plains
Of roundups and rustlers and home on the range
Turn on the TV, shut out the lights
Roy Rogers is riding tonight
—Elton John, Roy Rogers, from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
I heard Roy Rogers a while ago and coincidentally just after a discussion I had with our eldest granddaughter about my opinion of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. My opinion, of course, is that GYBR is Elton John’s masterpiece. Along with lyricist Bernie Taupin, they created start-to-finish, a singular musical gift to my generation. (Too much? I’m kinda known for that. I told you my father called me Sarah Bernhardt.) That said, I could not get Roy Rogers out of my head, and like many songs, I knew only some of the words. So, I did what I always do; I looked up the lyrics.
This song isn’t about me, but I’m in there. Perhaps I should preface what you’re about to read by saying I hate growing old. Please don’t tell me I don’t look seventy, because that is absolutely no compensation for the old man I see in the mirror or the one who cannot get up easily from the floor. At age seventy with a heart that is held together by super glue and crossed fingers, I am well-aware that I’m either in or nearing my last lap.
Sometimes you dream, sometimes it seems
There’s nothing there at all
You just seem older than yesterday
And you’re waiting for someone to call
I have often said that happiness is overrated. Happiness is the byproduct of hard work and dedication. When I was young I wanted to be a teacher, and I became one. I was never happy at 2:00 a.m. trying to figure out how I might get the knowledge in my head into the heads of the students I would see in a few hours, but never happier when they learned the lessons I taught. People sometimes say about their family members, “I just want them to be happy.” I suppose I do, too, but mostly I want them to earn their happiness.
After seventeen years in the classroom, I met a man whom I love to this day. He encouraged me to think big—to dream. He had more confidence in me than I had in myself. With encouragement and his mentorship I became a high school principal. I was happy that I accomplished such a goal, and feel happy now that I was able to do the work successfully. I wasn’t as happy when a teacher was accused of the inexcusable, nor his final decision as a result. I wasn’t happy when the stress of the job and the subsequent insomnia made me wonder how long I could possibly endure the stresses of my job. That same man helped me through the trauma and get back to the work I agreed to do.
As of this writing that was thirty-one years ago. In those subsequent three decades my fulfilled dreams included living and working in southeast Asia and also in Europe. With my wife (of now 51 years) we traveled to dozens of foreign countries, and moved from house to house more times than a colony of ants. Happiness was never the goal, but it sure came easily.
Since retiring in 2006 we have watched and participated when we could in the lives of our three grandchildren. We are still watching carefully albeit from a distance these days. One of them is talking about marrying a man whom I hope continually earns his place by her side. One of them is nearing the end of his undergraduate experience. And one of them soon will approach her teenage years but at this point stays in contact thanks to Facetime.
You draw the curtains and one thing’s for certain
You’re cozy in your little room
The carpet’s all paid for, God bless the TV
Let’s shoot a hole in the moon
For the last fifty of my years above ground I haven’t believed there is a grey haired old man in the sky orchestrating the events on earth. I refuse to accept that a fiery eternity awaits violators of a sacred text. No streets paved with gold; no pearly gates. Nope, for me if heaven does exist it’s right here; right now. According to people much smarter than I, there is a 1/400,000,000,000,000 chance of even being born. Every person you know and every person who ever was is or was the result of thousands and thousands of intimacies. If any one detail, even the tiniest detail was different with regard to any of those intimacies (from missed appointments to a change of heart to not going to a friend’s house after school and meeting the woman who would help you build a life) the odds would have changed to zero. Is that God? Is that fate?
I do not believe I was born for no reason. I’ve seen the reason I was born. I have literally held some of those reasons. (I sometimes tell one of my granddaughters that she is the reason I was born. She told me her other grandfather told her he was the reason she was born!) But I also know that my purpose on earth also included the influence I had on the lives of hundreds of young people.
All that said and despite years and years of a happy existence, at this point I struggle. I’m not afraid to die; I think. (As Steve Jobs once said, “Even people who believe in heaven don’t want to die to get there.”) I know I can enjoy the satisfaction of a life well-lived and the happiness well-earned even while dreading the conclusion.
Oh, Roy Rogers is riding tonight
Returning to our silver screens
Comic book characters never grow old
Evergreen heroes whose stories were told
Did you watch “After Life” on Netflix? Two new-found friends sit alone on a bench in a church graveyard.
(He says to her:) It was something you said. It's not all about me. It's worth sticking around to maybe make my little corner of the world a slightly better place.
(She replied:) That’s all there is. Happiness is amazing. It’s so amazing that it doesn’t matter if it's yours or not. It's that lovely thing. A society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That’s it. The end.
Oh the great sequin cowboy who sings of the plains
Of roundups and rustlers and home on the range
Turn on the TV, shut out the lights
Roy Rogers is riding tonight
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