Western

  When I was a kid, I loved watching westerns on TV.  Shows like Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, The Lone Ranger, The Wild Wild West, and so many more.  Most of them came on CBS.  For some reason, I didn't care for most of the westerns on NBC.  They just seemed not as real as some of the others.  And, I wasn't allowed to watch Gunsmoke or Have Gun Will Travel, because they were too violent.  I did meet two actors who were on NBC western shows.

 The first was Lorne Greene.  He came to the opening of Richland Mall in Columbia.  He was on Bonanza.  I know that was a very popular show.  I just didn't watch it.  It came on opposite Perry Mason, which my mother loved to watch, and later opposite the Smothers Brothers, which I liked to watch.  CBS was big in our house.  When Lorne came to the mall, he was swamped by little kids.  He looked a little perturbed at that prospect, but he tried to be nice.  Everybody wanted his autograph, but he brought black and white photos with his printed signature.  I shook his hand and told him my name.  He had rough hands. You could kind of tell that he just wanted to get paid for his appearance and leave.

 The second was Leif Erickson.  He was on the NBC show The High Chaparral.  I watched a few episodes of that show, but not because of him.  He had come to Columbia to make an appearance at our Christmas parade.  After the parade, there was a luncheon for him.  My father was invited to go, and he took me.  I got to sit at the head table next to Leif.  When he turned to talk to me, his breath could have knocked the spots off of a horse.  He was drunk.  He could barely sit in his chair next to me.  I hadn't been around someone that drunk before.  He wasn't the guy I saw on TV.  He was a lush.  

 One thing I realized about both of these men.  The actors you see on TV or not always the same in real life.  They both should have tried to be actors with the public.  Instead, they were just two guys who would have rather been somewhere else.