Another Night Visitor

 

 

I had another night visitor last night. Cheyenne Bodie, played by Clint Walker in an ABC-TV series that ran from 1955-62. In other words, from the fall of my sixth grade to when I graduated from high school.

My younger brother and I loved Cheyenne, tales about a roaming cowboy/gunfighter who had a very appealing demeanor. He was intimidating in size: 6’6” and, apparently, solid muscle. He didn’t lose fights except when guys piled on him.

For some years the show alternated its slot with some other Westerns, Sugarfoot (my least favorite—I mean the guy didn’t ever wear a gun belt!) and Bronco (starring Ty Hardin as another old-West wanderer) and Maverick, about two professional gamblers (Bret and Bart, played, respectively, by James Garner and Jack Kelly). That show was clever and exciting, and Garner, of course, went off to The Rockford Files, and any obsessives like me who have watched that series over and over again know that Kelly made a few guest appearances—always a Bad Guy, though.

Occasionally, the Maverick bros. appeared in a single episode.

Cheyenne appeared during the week, in the evenings, and school-days were TV no-no’s from my mother’s law book. But Dad was the Supreme Court, and he loved the show, too. So ...

So why was I thinking about it last night? I think it was the theme music that led it into my head. 

“Cheyenne, Cheyenne, where will you be camping tonight? Lonely man, Cheyenne ....” (Link to theme song.)

One particular episode in that show is still cause for laughter between my younger brother and me. In that story Cheyenne is caught in a blizzard, stuck with a mule and a remote cabin. On Christmas Day, as I recall, Cheyenne invites the mule inside and says those classic words: “Merry Christmas, Mule!” 

Are those the only words spoken in the entire episode? They could have been.

Anyway, when brother Dave and I get on the phone at Christmas, it’s not hard to guess what the first of our words are!

But the question remains: Why did that song—that show—drift into my head last night?

Well, Cheyenne was a drifter ...

(Link to all of season 3.)