b'Rogers continued from page 46previously flown over Russia despite obstacles fromany great Cowboy Artist like you. Shucks! on the luck, there suspicious Communist officials, expressed his desire towas only one of you and he couldent use you both places.fly up to Alaska, then across Siberia, eventually landing in Europe, Rogers, who too, had visited the embryonic SovietYou will run onto my old Dad up there Charley, For he Union and found it fascinating but foreboding, was all ears.was a Real Cowhand and bet he is running a wagon, and Rogers wrapped up his last films and agreed to meet Post inyou will pop into some well-kept ranch house under some San Francisco for the flight up to Alaska. cool shady trees and you will be asked to have dinner, and it will be the best one you ever had in your life, Well, As Betty Rogers wrote poignantly about their last nightwhen you are thanking the women folks, You just tell the together, "Of course I didn\'t know it was our last eveningsweet looking little old lady that you know her boy back together. The California night was cool, and as we sat inon an outfit you used to rep for, and tell the daughters that the grandstand of Gilmore Stadium, I remember thinkingyou knew their brother, and if you see a cute little rascal there was something incongruous about a rodeo underrunning around there kiss him for me. Well cant write you floodlights. I missed the sunshine and the hot smell ofRogers began using air travelany more Charley dam papers all wet, It must be raining in cattle but Will was having a good time. Since the oldthe old bunk house.Indian Territory days when he had taken part in themas a vehicle to venture to himself,Will had never lost his delight in the rodeoCourse we are just a hanging here as long as we can. I contests - calf roping, bull-dogging, and bronc riding.places around the world he dont know why we hate to go, we know its better there, Even tonight he could not stay away, although his bagshad never seen before. Maybe it\'s because we haven\'t done anything that will live were packed and he was taking the eleven o\'clock plane toafter we are gone. From your own friend, Will" (Charles San Francisco on the first leg of his flight to Alaska. M. Russell, Trails Plowed Under: Tales of the Old West, Doubleday, New York, 1927, xvii-xviii)Sitting there in our box under the floodlights I watchedThat night in Los Angeles we drove from Gilmore Stadium him grin and wave to the contestants as they rode by onto the airport. The waiting room was crowded and weAnd this poem in a frame with a thermometer for a fuel the tanbark. Will knew most of the boys in the show,slipped outside to talk until the plane was ready to go. Thencompany, which this writer found in a display case in a and one-by-one, as the evening wore on, the old-timerswe said good-bye, and with his overcoat over his shouldercorner of an antique store in Glendale (Arizona) about came over to shake hands with him. Someone gave Willand a roll of midnight editions under his arm, Will steppeda decade ago. (Heres just a little story about it. I stopped a little wood-and-paper puzzle while we sat there. Quiteaboard. The plane taxied down the field, turned around,at the store on my way home from one of Dr. Buck\'s unconsciously he toyed with it throughout the evening. Itand came back for the take-off. As the ship nosed up IWild Western Shows, saw it - and initially passed it up. I was a mannerism I knew so well and which was so much acaught a fleeting glimpse through the window - he wasthought about this poemwith its nice image of Will and part of him. His restless hands could never stay still. Then,smiling - and I stood looking up at the red and green lightshow beautiful the elegy to him wasfor a couple of weeks, when the show was over I saw him stuff the puzzle in theof the plane until they had disappeared in the darkness. went back to the antique store - and it was gone! I was pocket of his coat. The printed program went there too.about to walk out of the store, disappointed when I took a Will had a habit of keeping little things. He never playedJust ten days later he and Wiley Post crashed on the boggycloser look at that display caseAND THERE IT WAS! ) a theater without saving the program, never attended atundra of Northern Alaska. An Eskimo runner broughtIt is now one of my prized possessions:dinner or banquet without bringing home the menu card.the news to Point Barrow. A rescue expedition was sent His pockets, like those of a boy, always held trinkets orout. In Will\'s pockets, when they found him, were the souvenirs of one kind or another. stub of a pencil, a picture of our daughter Mary clipped from a newspaper, a few coins, a knife, a dollar watch, the program of the rodeo that night, and the fragments of the little wood-and-paper puzzle" (Betty Rogers, Will Rogers, pp. 11-12).Not much needs to be written here that isn\'t already pretty much known. The countryand the worldmourned the passing of America\'s Greatest Indian Cowboy, the man who claimed he never met a man he didn\'t likewho brought joy and laughter to millions throughout this country Amazing Views! Black Mountain, Cave Creek, Arizona and the world. He would be buried back in his HILLSIDE, NO HOA and paved roads to 6220 E Surrey Drive. beloved Oklahoma, and Betty would join him inOffered at $799,000. 1944, nine years later.Build your Not much more except Beth Cornell dream today!perhaps, if this writer may indulge the reader, AZ Virtual Realty 34.04 Agriculturaljust two more things. The acres within 7 milesfirst, the closing writings bethcornellaz.com of Walmart and I-40Rogers\' sad introduction to the passing of his close Access. Winslow. friend and fellow Cowboy, Only6K per acre. the artist Charlie Russell in Russell\'s posthumous book of Cowboy life - Trails Plowed Under:"At first we couldent 623-293-8445 understand why they moved you, but we can now, They had every kindA tip of the Stetson elegy to one of the greatest men BETHCORNELL.TEAMVRG@GMAIL.COM of a great man up there,America ever produced - and yes, HE WAS AMERICA\'S but they just dident haveCOWBOY TO THE WORLD! 48 February 2021'