Stepping back from 'political slop' to remember a legendDate: 10/30/2014 I love the moment in “A Christmas Story” in which The Old Man (played by Darren McGavin) comments on a fluff piece in his newspaper by saying “This is real news – not that political slop!”
As the election cycle year nears its conclusion, I must say I’m glad to see it shuffle off to its conclusion. Sure, there have been a lot of twists, turns and surprises. Who would have guessed that a Republican candidate for governor would receive the endorsement of the Boston Globe?
The gubernatorial race has been characterized as one of two candidates seeking redemption and only one finding it. It has also been marked as one with several credible independent candidates adding some welcomed additional voices to the conversation.
This has also been the year in which some candidates have been excluded from debates, something I think is wrong. We’ve also seen some candidates visit our far-flung region fairly regularly, while others have not.
Locally, there have been primary races with surprising results and some what the heck moments that will provide the materials for a lot of off the record conversations between myself, my staff and friends. Let’s just say I’ve done a fair amount of face palming in the last few weeks.
So enough, momentarily, of the “political slop.” I need a bit of a break. In the hubbub of the last two months, something slid by that I had wanted to note – the 100th birthday of Clayton Moore in September.
Who? The actor who played the Lone Ranger not only on the television series and two feature films, but also in public appearances almost up until his death in 1999.
For Baby Boomers, the Lone Ranger was a common element they shared with their parents who had listened to the Western adventures of the masked man, although different actors were involved with the radio and television stories.
The television series was a rather low-budget production, but when I was a kid I didn’t care the Lone Ranger and Tonto stood in front of the same paper maché rock over and over.
I’ve been catching episodes of the show on the over-the-air station COZI TV and what have impressed me are their tight storytelling and the efforts by the production team to make the most of their limited resources.
At the heart of the show were the characterizations created by by Moore and Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto.
Despite the fact the last two attempts to bring the character to new generations – “The Legend of the Lone Ranger” in 1981 and last year’s “The Lone Ranger” – were artistic and box office failures, there is still quite a fan base for the character, largely based on Moore’s charismatic performance.
His birthday was noted by “CBS Sunday Morning” and by several events including a Warner Brothers studio tour with Moore’s daughter Dawn and a special tribute at the Lone Pine Film Festival.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Moore when I was a talk show host on the late and lamented WREB in Holyoke during the mid-1980s. At the time, the station was receiving a monthly newsletter of various potential interviews. Moore was listed and I wasted no time calling him.
He answered the phone and I immediately recognized his voice.
He wanted to know how I got his number and didn’t seem too pleased.
“Oh no,” I thought. “I’ve made the Lone Ranger mad at me!”
It turned out the newsletter was not supposed to publish the information for another month. Moore quickly became friendly and promised to appear on my show in about a month.
Just like the Lone Ranger, he kept his promise. I only had about 10 minutes with him, but it was memorable.
It’s always a pleasure to find out that people whose work you’ve admired – especially as a kid – are worthy of that admiration.
Now I need to go back to the political slop.
Agree? Disagree? Drop me a line at news@thereminder.com or at 280 N. Main St., East Longmeadow, MA 01028. As always, this column represents the opinion of its author and not the publishers or advertisers of this newspaper.
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