Happy Trails to You

I think it was the 6:40 wake-up where strains of “Happy Trails to You” wafted through my gray matter, that I thought: “Change the name of your blog.” 

This weekend Husband Dear, Sweetpea, our little dog, and I spent the night in a hotel room and I awakened at 11:45, at 5:45, at 6:40, then slept until 9:30 in the morning. However, it was the 6:40 time where the song played.

Back home, I couldn’t do it. I tried. I typed in a new name for this blog and everything. But my finger worked like the proverbial check signer who couldn’t put his signature on the line.

Surprise, I can get the domain name—maybe I should grab it while I can.

However, when it came time to drop the wishonwhitehorses.com, I couldn’t get my fingers to do it. I might totally annihilate my site. People won’t be able to find me anymore. On top of that, I’ve had Wish on White Horses for so long it’s grown into me, but then I’ve had jewell's happy trails as my email address for about as long.

My quandary. Any votes?

As a kid, I watched Roy Rogers and Dale Evans movies, and it was there I heard Roy with The Sons of the Pioneers sing “Happy Trails to You.”

You must remember Trigger, Roy’s big beautiful palomino horse. Their signature salute was with Trigger rearing and Roy sitting tall in the saddle waving his hat. 

Billed as the smartest horse in the movies, Trigger saved Roy more times than Lassie saved Timmy. Trigger could untie knots, open gates, come to Roy’s whistle, and pull blankets on and off sleeping bodies.  

This was probably before your time. No matter, I’m sure you’ve heard of Roy Rogers, the singing cowboy.

Well, what about the lady that rode beside him on her buckskin Buttermilk?

 

That was Dale Evans, and it was she who wrote the song “Happy Trails to You.”

Evans penned the song in less than an hour, and forty-five minutes before their radio showtime she taught it to Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers. They went on the air and sung it for the first time. 

That song became Roy Roger’s theme song and has been sung more times and by more people than flies have offspring. 

Dale took Roy’s autograph, “Happy trails, Roy Rodgers,” as her inspiration. 

“Some trails are happy ones.

“Some are blue.

“It’s the way you ride the trail that counts.

“Here’s a happy one for you.”

“It’s the way you ride the trail that counts.”  

We’ve found, down through the ages, that concept, different words, floating through most spiritual and psychological teachings.

Way to go Dale.  

I googled Dale Evans and found her to be as cute as bee’s knees, and had a wonderful lyrical voice. She was a singer long before she came on the Western scene with Roy Rogers.

So, here we are trudging down our trails, some happy, some blue, but it’s the way you ride the trail that counts. Our trail was easy to ride this weekend. We took a trip to Florence and Newport Beach, Oregon. 

“Let’s go to the coast,” I suggested, “don’t worry about the weather, it can rain, shine or storm, I don’t care.  We can eat at two of our favorite restaurants, “The Waterfront Depot” in Florence one day, and “New Ocean,” in Newport Beach the next. 

After the rain and cold-weather we had been having at home, summer came for us that weekend. It was glorious both days. People were outside, on the beach, at an open-air market, and the New Ocean Restaurant opened their garage-style doors and let the sunshine in.

Sweetpea dined on Cajun- Salmon--the piece was larger than I could eat--the first day and for dessert the tail-end of my ice cream cone of vanilla with salted caramel swirl. Superb. BJ’s homemade ice cream in Florence is kiss-your-fingers magnifique.  

 Sweetpea was a happy camper.

She’s not always happy. She has developed a fear of loud noises, and now with her sensitivity, I notice how noisy the world is. If I roll down the car window, a truck will hit its air brakes. In parking lots, there are more slamming doors than seagulls on the breach. Everyplace has beeps, dings, dongs, and thuds.

 

And we have a quivering dog.

But on the beach, Sweetpea runs like a gazelle with no apparent thought to the ocean’s roar. The sand is her happy trail. 

I supported the arts in Florence by buying a print. I liked looking at this tiger so much I had to bring it home with me. It's a watercolor titled Mr. Tiger by Lora Zombie. 

We visited The Hot Shop in Newport Beach and watched a glass blower make a glass pumpkin start to finish. 

I asked him if you could make glass from beach sand, and he told me how refined the glass is they use. It has silica, of course, to which they add sodium carbonate, and potassium, and calcium oxide. The glass makers vary the recipe, adding different chemicals for different uses.  Sometime these artisan blowers need to order their supplies a year in advance.

While still hot the glass objects are placed in an annealing oven for slow cooling to prevent cracks. Some take days or weeks, and large items can take months. 

 Glass floats are popular on the Oregon Coast. And since it’s rare to find those aqua glasses floats once tied to fishing nets, now the glass blowers make beautiful decorative globes—still called floats. 

And then around the corner we ran into a lady pirate--not real. Good sculpture.

At Nye beach, we watched kids in a kayak, and a golden retriever dog swimming across a small channel. There was a man on one bank and the kids on the other, and they would throw sticks, and I don’t know how many times that dog swam across that water way. He would pop out of the water shake, splatter water on the people then jump back in. He was on a happy trail.

 Nye Beach, dog in the water.

“Happy trails to you until we meet again.”

Joyce aka Jewell

P.S.

 I struggled with the idea of touching politics. A place I don’t want to go. Then I remembered a day in the life of my little 6-year-old daughter. 

#The Sound of Music movie credits had rolled, the theater lights came on, the Von Trapp family had hiked over the alps to escape Germany and to enter Switzerland. 

My little daughter turned to me and asked: “Would we be that brave?” 

I don’t know. 

• I know it’s easier to let the powers that be decide our fate than to choose it for ourselves.

• I know that it’s easier to keep quiet than to speak up. 

• I know it’s easier to laugh at racial slurs that to speak against them. 

• I know it’s easier to go into our own world, to study being successful, or how to be happy than it is to care for those who need a leg up. 

• I know it’s easier to write or read 150-character Tweet, which seems to run public thought than to delve into the subject at depth. 

• I know it’s easier to watch the news, to know they are skewed, but to let them permeate our brains anyway. 

• I know that belief is stronger than evidence. 

• I know that humans, like animals, have a strong territorial instinct, a fear strangers, and anyone different from them, and that overcoming that bias takes work. 

• I know that people fear what they can’t understand and are willing to be taken care of. 

I know that the human spirit is indomitable if fanned. 

I know that people have an instinct to run to the rescue. 

I know that beneath layers of injustice, injury, and persecution can come a person of power and influence. 

I know that people want to love one another if given half a chance.

These people exist--don't forget it. 

 

PPS. The Sound of Music was initially released to terrible reviews who called it too saccharine and then the film went on to become one of the all-time best-loved movies winning 12 Academy awards, with the indomitable Julie Andrews pulling out all stops.

Who doesn’t love music, dance, love, exquisite scenery, and courage? I saw myself as Mother Superior singing “Climb Every Mountain,“ but I didn’t have the voice or range of Patrica Neway, but neither did Peggy Wood who played the part. (Nor was I her age when the movie was made.)

I don’t care that the story varies from the true Von Trapp family, it’s a heart-warming story, and Hollywood takes license when a film is “Inspired-by.”

The true Von Trapp family.