Happy Anniversary Lone Ranger!!

Above is the first page of MAD comicbook’s second takeoff on the Lone Ranger, illustrated by Jack Davis (Georgian corn-fed).

"Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear.... The Lone Ranger Rides Again!" – that was the opening, as the Lone Ranger and his faithful Indian companion Tonto set up camp outside town to discuss what evil lurks in town, and how they were going to straighten things out. A pair of do-gooders!

This past Sunday on the CBS News Sunday Morning Show they said “next Wednesday will be the Lone Ranger’s 75th anniversary of the first time they aired on radio.

Well, today is Wednesday.

In my grammar school days I remember daily meeting my old late friend Larry Holcombe where our back yards met – we each had toy guns and a stick or a broomstick which any fool could see was not a stick or broomstick, but a beautiful horse.

We each also had a Lone Ranger badge that we got by sending something off to Marietta (I’m sure this is misspelled) Bread Company. We also each wore a Lone Ranger black mask. We were the Lone Ranger Twins.

We galloped the open range looking for evil bad guys and always found them, and made them pay for their sins of swindling the gold mine workers by shooting them dead.

The opened range was the back yards of his family, my family, his uncle and aunt the Whites, the Hands, and the Baxters. We would have extended the range to the McEntyres and the Jones, but his mother wouldn't let him cross the street.

We were too young and too irresponsible to have watches on our wrists but somehow our built-in clocks knew when it was time to come in the house, curl up on the floor with cookies and milk and listen to The Long Ranger on radio.

Tell me, what do you think of when you here William Tell’s Overture? If you say anything other than The Lone Ranger you either had your nose in a book when you were growing up or you are a pretentious snob. Those are fighting words stranger.

"Hi-yo Silver, away!"