Saturday Matinees and Cowboy Heroes

Movies were a fantasy for all us little kids growing up in the Forties. We went to the Saturday matinee at the Highland Theater almost every week. It cost twenty-five cents to get in and popcorn was a nickel. I saw many, many cowboy movies. Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys, was my hero. He had a beautiful golden Palomino named Trigger and a dog named Bullet. His sidekick was Gabby Hayes and he was married to Dale Evans. His signature song was Happy Trails To You (until we meet again). I liked The Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy and Gene Autry, but I especially liked cowboy movies that had Indians in them. They fascinated me, somehow. Cowboy movies were like morality films; the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats. Good always triumphed over evil in those days. There was always a double feature with lots of cartoons in between (Th-th-that’s All Folks!). I remember seeing clips on World War II on the news reels between the two movies. Virginia McFarland took us girls to see the Wizard of Oz once, but we were all so scared of the witches in it, we ran out to the concession area and she had to take us home.