The Lone Ranger and Zorro: Influences from My Childhood.

This is really going to date me.

We’re living in Costilla, New Mexico.

We had this black and white TV that at the time was state of the art.

It’s hooked to this an antenna. It was probably because I just a child, but the thing looked to soar hundreds of feet into the air. The reason for that is the technology used something called Translators or a repeater for a TV signal.

Our Repeater was on San Antonio Mountain. That was clean on the other side of the valley. And between us and it was Ute mountain which could block the signal. That’s why the antenna had to be high. When the wind blew the antenna swayed like a dancer, the metal pole bending and the guide wires creaking.

Since we’re exaggerating a little here, the antenna was also roughly the size of the radio telescope at Arecibo.

All of this technology to produce a snowy, thrilling picture of daring for a four year old boy. I had this plastic horse on springs. I’ve got cap gun, and on the television, in all his masked glory is Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger.

And if it wasn’t the Ranger, then it was Guy Williams. He’d be decked out in black, brandishing a sword and wearing the mask of Zorro.

Both occupied my morning in their fight for justice.

And when they’re riding on their horses, I’m bouncing up and down on my little horse. I was thrilling to the chase as these two men rode in search of justice.

I’ve had occasion to wonder at the influence these two men had on me in my later life pursuits. Why else would I have become highly proficient with a firearm or learned how to use a sword.

I suppose in the man there’s still the child living up to his hero’s.