Leonard & Lucille

I felt good when I got up this morning, yeah….actually felt rested. I didn’t want to miss church this morning because once a month we have “Sounds of Hope”, it’s not our usual service, it is different and varies, so we always have something different to look forward to. This morning we had a good mix with our hymns, we had newer, contemporary ones mixed in with oldies and traditional. We had what I considered an “oldie”, that was actually in our newer hymnal, (strange). It brought a flood of nostalgic feelings back for me as I sang that hymn. You see, I learned by heart every word from every verse of several of the old gospel songs that we now call old gospel, from sitting in my Grandmother’s dining room listening to a set of 45 rpm recordings of those gospel hymns sung by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Did any of you ever listen to their gospel recordings done in the 50’s? I know you probably remember their secular songs, like “Happy Trails”. These records were turquoise green and in an album, think there were 4 records, with 4 or 6 songs on each side. The songs were all gospel hymns. Anyway, I loved those songs. I think I loved listening to them because of who was singing, but I came to love those hymns! So, that memory comes alive every time I sing one of them. I watched Roy Rogers and Dale Evans on TV every Sat. morn on their TV Western show! Remember he was “King of the Cowboys” and Dale was “Queen of the West”. I loved that show, with Pat Brady and his jeep, and Bullet their dog, and of course their horses (Who could forget Buttermilk and Trigger!)

Did you know you can waste a lot of time, just reading what all you find, after "googling" someone, or something. There was so much to read about Roy and Dale. They did recordings in the 50’s, and their TV show ran from 1951 – 1957. Did you know that Roy’s real name was Leonard Slye and Dale’s real name was Lucille. (Can you imagine "Leonard & Lucille"??) I also enjoyed both of them in later years, they were both in the music business well beyond their retirement years. I always respected them for the witnessing they did about their Christian faith (of course maybe that turned some off too), but I respected them for it. Roy died at age 86 in 1998 and Dale at age 88 in 2001. I remember mourning when they passed away. There is a museum about them in Branson, Missouri. Branson is a place I would like to go to sometime, if I do, you know I’ll be visiting their museum!