Candide, ou l'Optimisme

Ahhh Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, and his wonder dog king.  I had read Call of the Wild by this time ... missed the symbolism but liked the story.  I could imagine Dawson, the camps in the forest and the rough talk of a very rough place on earth.  The more things I read about the gold rush, the more I bumped into mysterious police called Mounties...took me a bit to figure out that Mounties was slang for Mounted Police although for the most part they seemed attached to sleds pulled by dogs instead of jumping on a horse...but I guess mounting a sled is much the same thing.  But back to the Sgt. and King.

The radio version of this TV show played on Sunday nights (Think Dudley Doo-right and Bullwinkle if you can't go back a little farther)  and my family used to sit in the dining room where the piano was and the big radio of unknown make sat in the corner. We kept some spare tubes for the radio in the kitchen drawer just in case we were interrupted by the pop of one burning out at a key moment.  My mom used to serve our regular Sunday night dinner - tomato soup and egg noodles with bread my dad made - I thought that is or was what everyone ate on Sunday nights....anyway, Suspense, Green Hornet, Ozzie and Harriet, Jack Benny and Sgt. Preston among others.  Dinner would go on for a couple hours and no one minded the dark room, even in winter.  We slurped the soup until the bread ran out and perhaps there was pie for dessert.  It struck me and does to this day how you can listen to radio and get a clearer picture than from a TV.

And when Sgt. Preston hit TV (and we got a TV) I was glued to this show above all others.  Quaker Oats sponsored the program for a long time and did a "own a piece of the Yukon" promo where you could, if you sent in a box top or two, get a deed.  I got my deed. I still have it. 1 square inch.  I was rich; I knew it.

There was gold there.  Ahh Candide, ou l'Optimisme