Tag Archives: Albert Lea Tribune

Roy Rogers Rules, Out of Date or Still In Style?

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royrSomething About Nothing by Julie Seedorf – Albert Lea Tribune, June 9, 2014

“Happy trails to you, until we meet again.” Those were the words Roy Rogers and Dale Evans signed off with every week on their TV show, “The Roy Rogers Show.”

I was a young girl when Roy Rogers was on television. I was 5 or 6 when my family started watching “The Roy Rogers Show.” At that time there was one television in the house and it was black and white.

Children watched what their parents watched. Most of the time the shows were pretty mild; it wasn’t like it is today because there were television censors so kids could pretty much watch what their parents watched.

In 1961 reruns of “Roy Rogers” were broadcast on Saturday morning. I loved Roy Rogers. He was so cute as an older man to have a crush on. My cousin Rose also loved Roy Rogers, and Rose and I, along with cousins and friends, would play out in the grove and pretend we were the cowboys and Indians. It was what we did in those days; we used our imagination to have fun.

Every time I think of Roy Rogers or see Roy on television in old reruns, I think of my cousin and the fun we had.

This week I celebrated another one of those birthdays. Imagine my surprise when I received a card with a picture of Roy Rogers on the envelope. I didn’t have to look at the return address to know who had sent the card. It brought a big smile to my face.

The card also had a picture of Rogers and his wife, Dale Evans, on the front, and it was signed by my cousin, “from my boyfriend, Roy and me.” It gave me a big chuckle for my day.

On the back of the card were the Roy Rogers Rider Rules. I thought I would share them with you.

1. Be neat and clean.

2. Be courteous and polite.

3. Always obey your parents.

4. Protect the weak and help them.

5. Be brave, but never take chances.

6. Study hard and learn all you can.

7. Be kind to animals and take care of them.

8. Eat all your food and never waste any.

9. Love God, and go to Sunday School regularly.

10. Always respect our flag and our country.

These rules were part of the Roy Rogers Riders Club, started in the 1940s. Any child could join by sending in his or her name and address. A Rogersgram, which looked like an official telegram, was sent  and it arrived by Trigger Express.

Trigger, for those who don’t remember the show, was Roy’s horse. I still have my card somewhere in my memory boxes.

We took these rules seriously. Our parents liked these rules because they mimicked what they told their children. Looking at these rules some 74 years later, I believe Roy’s rules should be rules everyone abides by in 2014.

Taking care of you, treating others with respect, being kind to God’s creatures and paying attention to how we live in our world by not wasting are great standards to live by.

The ones to me that the most important are: Love God, and always respect our flag and our country.

Respect doesn’t mean blindly following. Respect doesn’t mean agreement when your heart tells you to disagree on an issue. The definition of respect in the dictionary is a deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities and achievements.

I have been thinking long and hard about respect  this the past week as I followed a conversation by a friend on Facebook on harassment of women in public places, such as convenience stores and fast food places, by roaming lotharios. The argument got heated when a couple of men joined in the conversation and said both sexes had problems with that.

As I read Roy Rogers Rider Rules I thought about this conversation. I have never liked “The Honeymooners” that used to be on television in the ’50s.

I did not like the comedy in the way Ralph treated Alice. Even as a child I did not like it. I did not see the humor in the disrespectful way he treated her although at my young age I didn’t realize what my dislike was for.

Fast forward to today’s comedies on television and you see someone getting sexually harassed or disrespected every day. Why is it that it is accepted behavior on television and not accepted behavior in real life? Is it any wonder those that are leering when my friend visits public places, get the idea that leering at women or even men is acceptable?

We don’t seem to have that deep respect anymore for each other and for our country. Maybe it all boils down to one thing and that is respect for one self. Our behavior, what we do and what we say, reflects our own self-respect.

If we don’t respect ourselves how can we expect respect from other people? Perhaps those that leer, berate public officials or the person in the car next to us shaking their fist, have less respect for themselves and their behavior, than the person they are directing their behavior at. If we don’t know how to respect ourselves, how can we show respect for others and how can we show respect for our country?

Deep thoughts for an old birthday gal, but that is what age is all about, wandering pondering.

Rogers believed in teaching respect. I believe Rogers had respect for himself and that is why he could show respect to others. I believe Rogers knew respect begins at home with ourselves and that is why he created Roy Rogers Rider Rules

Trash or Treasure? What Does Your Computer Measure?

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Computers are supposed to save us time. Computers are supposed to cut down on our paperwork. I admit I am a file hoarder. It is time to clean out my cell phone and clean up the files on my computer. I think creative types like me tend to clutter while creating. What fun is it to get rid of all those old files anyway?

Not only do I write but I love to create weird artwork on my computer. No one else might think it is any good. I don’t think it is any good, but it is relaxing to draw the way I feel on any given day. It is fun to try out all the new graphic programs. You never know when I might need one of them. Who wants to spend time pushing the delete button on the computer when a fabulous recipe or a friend are waiting online?

I recently watched a show about hoarders. My house doesn’t look like that, but if anyone looked at my computer they would see a hoarder. I don’t delete emails. I don’t clean up the old files. I was a computer repair person. You would think I would do what I told my clients to do but who has the time? That is a good excuse anyway.

The same goes with messages on my cell phone. You never know when you might need an old message. I know it’s time to delete when a friend recently got a message from me that was part of a message from over a year ago, and part of a message I texted the other evening. It was a very confusing message. I laughed when she showed it to me. I think she thought I possibly had tipped too many bottles of wine when I wrote it.

What about all those emails from all my email accounts? I so envy the people that I know that have everything perfect in folders. I want to be that person but I am always on to the next thing. Organizing emails isn’t as much fun as writing or painting or creatively making computer art that no one wants to look at.

I wasn’t an office organizer either when we had all that paperwork that we don’t have now because computers are going to save us time. The computer will only save us as much time if the person running it is organized.

I think the everyday details  of office work are too boring for creative minds. We work better in chaos. Who can find anything after we organize and have a place for everything? I can’t.

Let’s not forget the pictures on the computer. My pictures that are on my computer and on my phone are not organized either. They are like the real pictures in the storage boxes that need to be organized. I take the pictures, love the pictures but don’t take the time to have them printed out or organized any way except  by the way the camera put them on my computer.

Someday when I am an old woman I will color the folders on my computer red.
I shall sit down and organize my pictures into purple boxes.
I shall empty the computer trash and trash the photos where I am doing something boring.
I will keep only those emails which lift me up and not take me down.
I will with the touch of a button hit the delete button on the boring so that in my old age I will only keep soaring.
But until then I will cherish my scattered mind, let the colors in my brain flow and let the creativity show.
My computer mess will wait, my kids can smash it when I am at heaven’s gate.
That sounds like a good solution to me, I’ll go on creating and be who I am meant to be.

Remembering how Past Wars Shape Our Lives!

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Something About Nothing Column published in the Albert Lea Tribune on May 26, 2014

Every year I rack my brain when it comes to holiday columns. I always wonder what I could possibly say that I haven’t said before. Memorial Day weekend is here. Take time to remember those who fought to protect America, remember their families, etc., etc., etc. How many ways can I spin this and still be sincere?

The other evening I was watching the unveiling of the new 9/11 Memorial Museum. Firefighters, members of the military and public citizens marched into the museum carrying the giant American flag, which had been flying from a building beside the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. It had been damaged and found in the debris at Ground Zero. This flag was transferred into the museum to be part of a permanent collection in the museum. american-flag-2a

World War II took place before I was born. The Korean War took place when I was a toddler. The Vietnam War took place during my teen and young adult years. The Persian Gulf War took place as I was raising my children.

I remember the exact place I was in the grocery store when it was announced over the speaker that we were at war. It was a scary feeling. I remember the basketball game during the few days and the patriotism that people felt at what was happening. As I age we are fighting a war in Afghanistan.

Those are listings of the wars that get the most press. According to Wikipedia, between 1900 and the present the United States has been involved in some way or another in 42 wars.

On Sept. 11, 2001, the world as we knew it changed again. Watching the museum ceremony on television and the interviews with the people who actually lived 9/11 in person brought tears to my eyes. I remembered the way the world stopped for America that day.

I have to imagine that is the way my ancestors felt at the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Their world, too, changed that day.

The world we live in has to adjust to the changes that war brings to our lives, whether the war is on our soil. We have had to adjust to husbands, fathers, wives, mothers and sons and daughters leaving home to fight for our freedoms. We have had to adjust to a more restrictive way of life. I would imagine our ancestors had to do the same. Little by little the world has changed to what we now know after 9/11.

I am 64 years old, and I realize there has been a war going on for most of my life. Hearing the casualties and the news about attacks and bombings has become a way of life that gets lost in our news because we are used to it. Soldiers’ injuries and mental health problems from long tours overseas is talked about and has become a daily conversation. Post-traumatic stress disorder has become a common term in our world. We go on with our lives, walk the streets with our neighbors and settle in to accept these things as an everyday way of life passing the issues off as normal news.

For those who live with injuries, death of loved ones and instability because of emotional issues, the normal news is their fact of life. They aren’t a passing story; they can’t take their issues for granted because they must live them day in and day out.

It’s Memorial Day. Take some time to reflect on what the conflicts of the past and the conflicts of the future have cost us as a country. Consider what the conflicts have cost the veterans of yesterday and the soldiers and their families of today. Take some time to reflect on how your life has been changed because of these conflicts.

And then say thank you to a veteran. Say thank you because even in the country where we complain about our politicians, the cost of living, the job market, our churches, our police force, health care and our president we still are free to verbalize our thoughts. We still are free to worship in our religion of choice. We still are free to complain or shout with joy. We still live in the greatest country, the home of the brave and the land of the free.

And we still are free to thank those who keep us free.

Thank you.