Is That A Remote In Your Hand...Or, Are You Just Glad to See Me?

It took the local paper a couple of weeks to get around to picking up the wire story.  How could they be so dense?!  She just lived up the road and for guys like me who grew up in the 50's she was  the real "Queen of the West".  (Face it, Dale Evans was way too old--more suited to dad.)  Gloria Winters, aka Penny King, died August 14 at her home in Vista, California.  She was in her late 70's.

LATE SEVENTIES??!!  How did that happen?  We're talkin' Sky King's niece Penny.  She filled out a cowboy shirt like no other wholesome Saturday morning regular.  "Out of the clear blue of the Western sky" wholesome.  Brought to you by Nabisco wholesome.  She was the stuff pre pubescent boy dreams are made of.  (Okay, some pubescent and post pubescent boy dreams too.)
In case you were off the planet from 1952-1959, Sky King was a modern day western featuring a rancher/pilot who got into weekly TV adventures involving a myriad of bad guys bent on robbing banks, stealing cattle, and general impolite misbehavior.  Penny was Sky's perky, pretty, pugnacious teenage charge who often became caught up in his adventures.
She was hot, so hot that often times the hooligans of the week were inclined to snatch Penny and use her as a negotiating chip when, as was inevitable, Sky had them surrounded.  Penny spent an inordinate amount of time tied up at the old line shack.

In 1975 my job as a radio blabbermouth found me working in Tampa, Florida where one of our station promotions involved co-hosting a model airplane contest at Busch Gardens with Kirby Grant the actor who had played Sky King.  I was thrilled to get the chance to meet one of my childhood heroes and actually looked forward to doing the show with him.  When the event rolled around I found myself backstage with Mr. Grant who was, to my delight, decked out in his Sky King outfit.  Though he looked older, he still fit the cowboy duds nicely and seemed to relish the chance to once again play the character that had made him a star.
Things went south when, as I stuck out my hand to meet him, I said, " Gee,  Uncle Sky what were all those bad guys doing with Penny when they had her tied up at the old line shack?"  He gave me a look like I had just relieved myself in his Nabisco shredded wheat.  Oops!  Things went downhill from there.  I was definitely off the Sky King Christmas list.  Once again being a wise ass had taken me into a box canyon of no return.  We got through the show, but Kirby Grant wasn't ever going to give me Gloria Winters phone number.
So now she's gone and all these years she had lived just a few miles up the road from me here in California.  Life is cruel, but at least in America young men have fantasies about real girls.

Not so in Japan...
In the Wall Street Journal a couple of days back there was a front page story about young Japanese men checking into a special hotel featuring "virtual girlfriends".  After choosing one of three female characters--Goodie Goodie Manaka, sassy Rinko, or big sister type Nene to be a steady girlfriend the young player heads for a special hotel room where they exchange flirtatious text messages  and even some virtual kisses. No wonder they lost the war.

I think I'll stick to my good old American fantasies like Uncle Sky's niece Penny.  The funny thing is Sky King probably would have been okay giving one of the Japanese guys Penny's number.  One of them could then send a text message Penny could ignore.
She, no doubt, had more fun spending time with the good old American hoods at the line shack.

Thanks for the smiles and the dreams Penny.  We boomer boys will be along to rescue you...probably sooner than we'd like.