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It all started with a Facebook post I saw last week. I was looking at videos; don’t even ask me how I found it, probably tooling around on Google, but I stumbled upon a Facebook post from someone who was calling attention to an old Carpetopia commercial from the 1970s. The person who started this post was wondering why a “washed-up” old guy like Dale Robertson would even bother. Which brought out the crass comments. BUT, to my surprise, most people who responded demanded some kind of an apology from this person, because Dale Robertson has always been a fan favorite of millions of people in the USA.
Which got me to thinking. Television really stinks. We (my husband and I) hardly ever watch network shows and NEVER network news. With all of the new streaming services available, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Sling TV, Netflix, HBO Now, YouTube, etc., cable is finding it increasingly difficult to keep up. We don’t bother with “premium” channels such as HBO, but we do like Starz Encore channels.
In particular, Encore Westerns.
Every day starting at 2 p.m., you’ll find westerns from days gone by. Long gone by. Like the late 1950s and early 1960s. When popular shows were a dime a dozen and ALL were thriving. Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Cheyenne, Wagon Train, Death Valley Days, Palladin, Maverick, Laramie, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Rin Tin Tin, Bat Masterson, The Big Valley, Hondo, Branded, Fury, Hopalong Cassidy, The Iron Horse, Wyatt Earp, The Lone Ranger, Rawhide, The Rifleman, Roy Rogers Show, Sky King, The Virginian, Zorro and so on.
I remember most of these shows, watched many an episode and every one of them was a hit with somebody. My favorite was Tales of Wells Fargo. Starring that “washed up” actor, Dale Robertson.
How happy are you? Do you have a quantum leap of happiness in your life today? Every day? What makes you happy, and is it a sustainable thing. And did you know that suicides in this country are at an all-time high? Farmers, in particular. Veterans, twenty-two every day.
People with no hope. People who think they are out of options.
There is another way. It has nothing to do with watching old westerns every day, either. Although, that’s not a bad idea.
You could say, happiness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Whatever you deem to make you happy, that’s it. If it’s not what your friends or spouse say, who cares anyway? Just being happy is most important to me. I gotta be me, after all.
And still you’re not happy. What’s with THAT?
You can go along with the crowd, any crowd, that crowd over there that looks good or sounds great. You can do what they do, say the things they say, be like them, buy what they buy, believe in the things they believe in.
Or not.
You can believe in the things you believe in because they are important to you. Because you stand on conviction, even when the rest of the world seems to be turning in another direction.
Did you know that we as a culture, as a people, have access to more things, more stuff, than any other generation in the history of the world? Literally, it’s at our fingertips. Even medieval kings didn’t have what “we the people” have. Imagine that.
We have whatever we want. And still, many are not happy with their lives. There is a constant push on every day to buy more, take more pills, smoke more pot, engage in more sex, get involved in social issues, and live life ON OUR TERMS. Isn’t that all that counts!
Well, no. As far as I know, (and anyone I’ve ever talked to), this life is your one life. There is no second go-round. There may be something waiting for us in the next life, but, I haven’t been there and back yet to say so.
We hold the key to happiness right here and right now. Each new day is a new opportunity to begin again to get it right. Because buying more, swallowing more pills, smoking more, having sex more, marching in the streets more and having it all our own way, isn’t the key.
The key is happiness.
Which brings me back to the late, great Dale Robertson.
Dale was an actor ( he passed away in 2013) who I can remember when growing up. There were numerous westerns playing on TV in those days, and aside from Bonanza, ‘Tales of Wells Fargo’ was one I recall watching. Usually with my mom. Those were the days of black and white tv, with shows like Bonanza opting for color by the 60s.
Maybe it was the way Jim Hardie (Dale Robertson’s character) carried himself. Maybe it were the things he said, or refrained from saying. There was just something REAL about him that has stuck with me all these years. Now that I have the opportunity to see it all again, I do realize that a man like Dale Robertson was the real deal.
He was first and foremost an Oklahoman. Born just outside Oklahoma City in Harrah in 1923, Dale went on to be an All-Star athlete in school and was considering becoming a professional boxer, before enlisting in the Army right from attending high school. He did his basic training at Ft. Riley in 1943 and became an enlisted cavalryman in 1944.
He was then sent to Officer Candidate School in Kentucky. 2nd Lieutenant Robertson became an Engineering Officer. He was assigned to the 322nd Combat Engineers, which did their training in California, practicing amphibious landings on the sunny beaches there.
Before he ever went overseas, while he was stationed in California. he, along with some buddies, decided to have their pictures taken. He especially wanted a portrait of himself sent to his mother back in Oklahoma. The photographer liked the picture so much he blew it up and put it in his window. That’s when the talent agents started getting in touch with Dale Robertson.
In the meantime, Dale and the entire 97th Infantry Division was put on a troop train, sent to New York and pretty soon found themselves sailing for France. Dale served as a tank commander in the 777th Tank Battalion in the North African campaign. While standing in the hatch when his tank was hit by enemy fire, he was blown out of the hatch, but survived with shrapnel wounds to his lower legs. He bore those scars til the end of his life. His tank crew all died.
After recovering, Dale found himself with the 322nd Combat Engineer Battalion in Europe. By this time, the Germans were fighting for their lives and country and battles were intense. Dale and his group were in charge of fixing bridges and roads in the Dusseldorf region of Germany, and then they were sent to the border of Czechoslovakia to help liberate that area.
The biggest problems were the mine fields that had to be cleared and 2Lt. Robertson’s platoon fought alongside the infantry in order to get those mines removed. While under 88mm artillery fire, he was wounded by shrapnel. Dale dressed his own wounds and got on with the fighting, never stopping to put in for a Purple Heart.
Dale’s time in the Army earned him a Bronze Star and a Silver Star. He was one of many who served his country well and would go on to a life well lived. He just did that on the big screen and had his greatest success on the small screen, namely TV.
Over the years, Dale appeared in more than 60 films, the majority of them Westerns, over 70 percent. He was in such movies as “Fighting Man of the Plains”, “Law of the Lawless”, “Golden Girl”, “The Silver Whip”, “Blood on the Arrow” and many others and Dale’s favorite, “The Gambler From Natchez.” For a guy who never studied acting, he did pretty well for himself.
Dale also was in 430 television episodes. Besides his TV show Tales of Wells Fargo, Dale also starred in Iron Horse in the 1960s, and was the last host of “Death Valley Days” from 1969 to 1970. He had recurring roles in the TV dramas “Dynasty” and “Dallas” and “Murder, She Wrote”; and in the 1980s starred in the short-lived series, J.J. Starbuck (long before that name became a popular coffee icon). But it is his Wells Fargo series, and the character he played, Jim Hardie, that he is best known for.
All his life he loved his horses. From the time he was 10 years old, he started learning how to train polo ponies. He became a skilled rider and he often said that the only reason he ever considered an acting career was to save up enough money to start his own horse farm in his beloved Oklahoma.
Then in 1947, after having signed a multi-film contract with Fox Studios, Dale purchased 436.8 acres in Oklahoma’s rolling Canadian River Basin and began building his dream ranch. It became known as The Haymaker Farm. Up until this time, Dale had been in the thoroughbred horse business. He wanted his horse ranch to be extremely popular and it was at this time that he began breeding quarter horses.
The Haymaker Farm bred world champions, record setters and outstanding breeding stock. Did you know the name of the farm, Haymaker, comes from a boxing punch which comes out of nowhere? Perfect for a young man with numerous boxing wins under his belt.
It was Dale’s brother Chet who managed the farm for Dale when he was away. There were champion horses along the way named Hy Dale, Nuggett Hug, Wingo Boy, Three Tiers, Rebel Cause, Doll Up and many others.
The one horse which Dale prized above all the rest was Jubilee. He purchased that horse at the Hollywood Race Track and Jubilee stood sixteen hands high, a sight to see. You see him riding Jubilee on Wells Fargo quite often; just look for the diamond-shape in white between his eyes and the long white stripe running down to his nose, called the blaze. His white socks extended up to his knees. Jubilee made appearances in countless rodeos and state fairs over the years; in fact, he traveled over 200,000 miles and carried hundreds of children on his back. There was nothing that horse couldn’t do.
Once Dale’s brother Chet passed away in 1977, the Haymaker Farm was sold and became known as the Heritage Place. It was here in Yukon, Oklahoma that Dale continued to reside, especially after settling there for good in 1980. I suspect his decision to want to return to his roots in the Midwest cost him personally; but when you lose something oftentimes you gain something more.
He loved acting and it was always a part of his life, but he knew better than to make it his everything. “An actor can change himself to fit a part, whereas a personality has to change the part to fit himself”, he said in an interview in 1988. “The personality has to say it his own way.” He always did.
Dale Robertson was never a super-star actor. Yet, to my mind, he had his priorities right. Everyone who ever knew him or dealt with him or was his friend, came away with only good things to say about him. He could be his own worst critic, citing times when he just couldn’t “keep my big mouth shut.”
One of his biggest honors was when he was inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. In 2001, his portrait with Jubilee was given to the museum to be hung there along with those of Ben Johnson, Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne. On more than one occasion, Dale was known to say how he never considered himself a ‘cowboy’ because he only dealt with horses not cattle. Tell that to the people of Oklahoma.
Money doesn’t buy happiness. Over time, Dale wrote screenplays, did radio spots, commercials, (like the Carpetopia commercial) and he would have his money problems. He was married four times and found love the last time around. He would want to be known best as a father, grandfather and an Oklahoman. I don’t see grand houses, 1958 Buicks nor Hollywood fame and fortune on that list.
I like to think of Dale singing that classic song “Gentle On My Mind”:
It’s knowin’ that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleepin’ bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch . . .When I walk along some railroad track and find
That you’re movin’ on the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
And for hours you’re just gentle on my mind. . . .That you’re waitin’ from the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
Ever smilin’, ever gentle on my mind.
To quote my favorite author in all the world, Louisa May Alcott:
The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.
Dale Robertson lived a most remarkable life. He was never “washed up”, nor did he ever come close to what that could possibly mean. He represented the best in a man, in the roles he portrayed, in the good friend that he was to so many. And to the loving husband, father, grandfather and soldier this side of eternity.
Did he fail at things he undertook? Don’t we all? Did he take on too much and see it all fall to pieces? I’ll join that club. Were there sorrows, sudden deaths, farewells he didn’t choose? Did he forge relationships along the way, down the years, through the decades? Was he a successful and honorable man?
Yes, he was.
You know, it really doesn’t matter whether you end up owning 400 acres or 6, . . . life goes on. It isn’t in the bigness of things where you will find your heart’s desire — it is in the love you give that will be reflected back to you, — this is your life’s legacy that will be created every year of your life.
I reckon that most of all, when Dale Robertson was sitting atop his Jubilee, with his cowboy hat atop his head, and boots on, he was happiest of all. To the best darn ‘special agent’ Wells Fargo ever had; my grateful thank you for a life well lived. I like to think that Dale is waitin’ on some back road, ever smilin’, ever gentle on our minds.
That’s something no amount of money will ever buy.
Just another way to
“Homekeeping Inspirations to Knitting (and Loving) Your Best Life!”
