Dorie’s Different Reality

I’ve always thought Ben Cartwright was the best TV dad ever. I’m putting a link in here to a nice picture of Ben http://bonanzaworld.net/bwgallery/gallery/albums/userpics/10218/BotL-MCE.jpg (It turns out everything connected to Bonanza is still copyrighted and I don’t want to get sued!) Grumpy but fair, good with a horse and caught his share of the bad guys. Those sons were something too; Handsome hardworking and obedient. I’ve figured it out. They were scared to death of Papa Ben. If my father had a 600,000 acre (holy moley!) ranch, I’d genuflect and indulge the old guy too. I wouldn’t want to get cut out of the will!

Ben was a ladies’ man but sure was a jinx with the wives. Adam’s mother was a Yankee lady who married Ben while he was a sailor. She died in childbirth. Hoss’ mother was a Swedish girl; she was killed by Indians on their way West. Joe’s mother was a fancy lady from New Orleans and there are two different accounts of her demise. One has her getting killed falling off a horse; and another version is that she was shot by a bandit! Notice that he never married again…word got around.

I’m going to start an Internet rumor about Hop Sing, the cook. Before he became owner of the largest ranch West of the Rockies, Ben was a sailor. I’m sure Captain Ben would have sailed the China Sea. So I’m thinking Hop Sing is probably another Cartwright son, from a lady in Kowloon no doubt! (I could turn this into a fan fic very easily!)
Seriously, it was interesting to see how that character evolved. At the beginning of the series’ he was stereotyped comedy relief. Speaking pidgin English like an old Charlie Chan movie, etc. Towards the end of the show, after Dan Blocker died and it was just Ben and Joe, they even had an episode where Hop Sing wanted to marry a Caucasian woman. They  couldn’t marry because it was against the law, and might have got Hop Sing lynched.

There are lots and lots of clips from the old cowboy television shows on YouTube. I wish they’d make more of them. We’re slightly more enlightened here fifty years later. Stories from the native people’s points of view could also be told. (I loved Cochise too! Were the Apaches really as scary as they were portrayed in the movies?)

Or we could have another “reality” show. Blah.

Another new customer! This is sitta canadensis, Red Breasted Nuthatch. This one sent me to the bird book. It has a long bill, and “hoppy” like a nuthatch, but it’s smaller; the size of the wrens. It’s found all over North America, preferring pine forests. We have evergreens in the front yard that are getting enormous, so it seems we have new tenants. Nice.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 9:01 am and is filed under Baby Boomers, Birds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.