The big screen 'good guy' cowboy's have gone the way of the village blacksmith, penny candy, nickel packs of baseball cards and rotary dial telephones.

Those good guy cowboy hero's have been replaced with robots and aliens, buildings blowing up and mutant's.

But there was a day. Oh my yes, there indeed was a day!

Tom Mix and Roy Rogers, Hop-a-long Cassidy, Gene Autry and many more. There was no gray in those movies, no siree. You had the good guy and you had the bad guy and by the end of the movie good always triumphed over evil. And the good guy didn't kill the bad guy, didn't blow him up with blood splattering. No, he'd capture the bad guy, tie his hands up, deliver him to the proper officials and ride off over the hill.

Oh, and usually he'd turn around, the horse would kick up and he'd wave his hat back at, well, us! As if saying, 'There ya go, Hombre, see you right here next week'!

Young folks today would call it corny. Simple. Yawn. Boring.

We called it fun. Because it didn't end when the movie did. No, we would go home, find a stick or a branch and take off for the yard, the grove, the lawn. And suddenly, as if by magic, we were Roy. Or Tom. Or Hop-A-Long. We were the good guy. Always the good guy.

In this great song (and by the way, most of our Cowboy hero's would have at least a song or two in those great westerns), the legendary Man In Black answers a little boy's question.

'Daddy, Who's Gene Autry'?

 

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