Posted tagged ‘Lassie’

”Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses.”

August 1, 2025

We didn’t get the thunder, but we got the rain. The storm started around 1:30. Henry ran out before bedtime, but Nala went out and turned right around. The rain got heavy quickly. The night was chilly, a shut your windows sort of night.

This morning is damp and cold. It is only 64° and won’t get much higher. The day is dark. The sky is all clouds, but no rain is predicted, just an ugly day.

When I was really young, my mother read Golden Books to me. My favorite was Henny Penny, and I demanded she read it to me all the time. I loved all the rhyming names like Turkey Lurky, Goosey Loosey and the villain, Foxy Loxy. Poor Henny believed the sky was falling when an acorn hit her on the head. She told all the other animals who got frightened so they followed her to tell the king. Now, I hadn’t read this book in years, but one Christmas my mother put a copy of it in my stocking. I read it with glee until the ending. I had forgotten the ending, purposely I think. At the end, the animals follow Foxy Loxy to his lair. He eats them all except for Henny Penny. She escapes. I don’t know what attracted me to this story. It can’t be the tragic ending. I’m thinking it’s the rhymes.

My dogs are having their morning naps. Each is sleeping on one side of the couch. I am in the middle. I remember Lassie Come Home. It was the very first Sunday movie. Lassie is sold. His poor family needed the money. Joe, who loved Lassie, was inconsolable. Lassie is taken hundreds of miles away to Scotland to stop her from escaping to go home. She escapes anyway but with help. Lassie survives a violent storm and dog catchers but makes it home. Old Yeller made me cry, probably still would, but I don’t choose to watch it. Many movie goers won’t watch a movie if a dog dies. People can die, just not dogs. I remember the movie Volcano. The dog made it. Grandma died. A website called Doggone will tell you if a dog dies in a movie. It gets a lot of traffic.

My dance card is empty until Monday. I get to loll around the house and eat bonbons, yes on the lolling but not really on the bonbons though I wish it were so.

“How often have the greatest thoughts and ideas come to light during conversations with the family over the evening dinner?”

April 2, 2017

The sunlight is wonderfully bright. The sky is a dark blue. It is warmer than it has been so it feels warm to me. When I helped Gracie into the yard, I stayed outside for a bit basking in the sun. She ran around the yard the way she used to when she was younger then bounded up the stairs into the house. She deserved her treat!

When I went to bed last night, it was close to 2 AM. I was watching television, going through those pesky catalogs and checking out recipes on Pinterest. I woke up this morning at 10:45. My mother would have called that the sleep of the dead.

I never used to need lists. My memory was enough. Now I need list after list. Alexa keeps my grocery list and stickies hold the rest. There is a great deal of satisfaction in crossing off completed tasks despite how mundane some of them are. I have to sweep the kitchen today. That’s an easy one to complete. One down!

Despite the season or maybe because of it, a few movies on the deck films have already arrived. Most are 50’s black and white B movies with aliens or gigantic creatures or both; also, I have ordered a few of my favorites like Gunga Din and Rear Window. Spring needs to step up so summer won’t seem so far away.

If I were to choose a favorite day of the week, I’d choose Sunday. I wasn’t keen on going to mass when I was young so I consider that the only blight on the day. Most Sundays when I was a kid were quiet. I’d read the Sunday funnies. After the Sunday matinee movies started on TV, we’d watch those in the afternoon. I remember watching Lassie, Come Home. We were all at Sunday dinner in those days, jammed into the small kitchen. On the cold days, the windows there got steamy. I remember my mother used Melmac plates and bowls. For some strange reason, I have a visual memory of a bowl heaped with mashed potatoes. Sunday night meant earlier to bed because of school, but I never really complained. I was usually tired.

Even now, Sunday is different than the rest of the week. I have two papers to read, and I like to take my time. Sometimes I make eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast. I usually have dinner though I often buy it rather than make it. More than not I have mashed potatoes.

I figure more than any other day, Sunday holds the most family memories.

“If it weren’t for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we’d still be eating frozen radio dinners.”

February 4, 2017

Today is a cold, clear winter’s day, the sort of winter’s day when the chill takes your breath away. The sky is an amazing blue with not even a cloud in sight.

I took a ride back in time this morning. First, I happened on Lassie, my Lassie with Jeff and Porky. I watched it without a critical eye. Ellen, his mother, wore the same outfit every 50’s mom wore, the same outfits Donna Reed and June Cleaver wore: dresses, high heels and some sort of jewelry, mostly pearls. The wall phone in the kitchen was one of those with a mouthpiece, a piece you hold to your ear and a crank you keep turning until the operator answers. I remember one vacation when we stayed in a huge, old house in Vermont. It had one of those wall phones, but when I tried it, I got a shock. I have no idea why that stuck with me. Anyway, back to Lassie. Ellen kept cranking. Jeff and Porky needed saving from drowning so Lassie came to the rescue and showed Gramps where the boys were.

If I were sitting on the floor in front of the TV and eating Rice Krispies, I’d swear I had been transported for a time back to the Saturday mornings of my youth as The Lone Ranger was on next. Right away I knew the voice of the Ranger wasn’t Clayton Moore’s. This episode was dated May 28, 1953 and was Season 3, Episode 38. I looked it up. It was John Hart who played the Ranger for 54 episodes from 1950-1953 because of a contract dispute. The narrator set the time, “In the raw, crude early days of the west.” Some of the scenes, especially the beginning and the end, were filmed outside but most were just a set with lots of rocks, bushes and a painted backdrop of more rocks and trees. I never noticed when I was young. I guess being a kid means a major suspension of disbelief.

Every Lone Ranger episode had a couple of common lines. “Don’t let this mask fool you. It is on the side of the law,” and, at the end, one character aways asked, “Who was that masked man?”

Hi Ho, Silver, Away!