I’ll be traveling to the prison to check on my brother again this weekend. I’m going to attempt to video tape my journey and post it on the site next week. Often times I don’t have the words to describe how difficult this ordeal is, was and will always be. My parents will be with me this trip. I’d like to say seeing Rick is easier when they are with me but that would be a lie. My parents are broken people. And so it goes… I wanted to share a bit about Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. They were two people who endured a great deal of heartache. Wish I could learn from their example. Dale Evans and Roy Rogers are such icons of the American West – quintessential cowgirl and cowboy – that sometimes its is difficult to remember that their personas were media creations and not the real thing. Neither of them grew up riding the range. Dale Evans, born Frances Smith, was married as a very young teen-ager, and then left to struggle as a single mother. Roy Rogers, originally Leonard Slye, grew up on a hard-scrabble farm. Talent and the Hollywood machine transformed them into stars. They married after Rogers was left a widower with small children. Tragedy – and the triumph over it – didn’t stop there. Both adoptive and natural parents, they endured the sad loss of three of their children over the years. Rogers and Evans managed to project an image of wholesomeness decade after decade over changing times.
Statistics of an American Icon
According to the Roy Rogers Corporation, the total revenue from the sell of Roy Rogers merchandise for 2010 was $7.4 million dollars
In 2010 the Roy Rogers/Dale Evans official website had more than 107,000 visitors a month
Ebay Auctions lists the Roy Rogers/Dale Evans memorabilia page as one of their most popular sites. More than 8,000 items are bought and sold a month
Roy Rogers and Dale Evans made 81 western for Republic Studios
The Roy Rogers Show was among the top NBC television programs from 1951 to 1957
In 1947 alone Roy Rogers received more than 900,000 fan letters
In 1953 alone 408,000 pairs of Roy Rogers slippers, 900,000 lunch kits, and 1,203,000 jeans and jackets were sold.
Happy Trails, Always.
