39: Cowboy Up

“He helped us, and we don’t even know his name. Who was that masked man?”
“Don’t you know? He’s the Lone Ranger!”

—some variation spoken at the end of every episode.

A fellow Twitterer asked about an image I used earlier on post 38: It Ain’t Me Babe. The image is of the Lone Ranger on his trusty horse Silver. The image was taken at an AirBnB I found myself living in for a few days around Day 67 of this odyssey.

I pulled the story and pics from another blog I wrote and am sharing it here specifically for her benefit. Hopefully, you will find this fun too. Below is the story of the Cowboy Room.

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I’m going to take some time away from my self-reflection and swimming the subliminal because I have also had a great time at moments over the last 67 days.

I’ve stayed at a lot of AirBnB’s over the years. A country cabin in Dallas, condos overlooking the skyline in Kansas City and off the back of a laundry room in Kalamazoo. I’ve met a great couple in Ellicottville and a Great Dane lover in Deep Ellum. Once a hot air balloon in Albuquerque nearly landed on the roof of the mother-in-law suite where we were staying.

This week I found a jewel.

When Larry and Linda accepted my reservation I didn’t give much thought when she said, they were going to put me in the Cowboy Room.

When I arrived I was met at the door by a quaint and elegantly dressed older woman in her late sixties or early seventies. She showed me around the house, I met Larry and then I was led upstairs to the Cowboy Room.

Seriously, it is a cowboy room. Real rifles in an unlocked cabinet, vintage cowboy hats hanging from corners, bolo ties, some western art, cowboy magazines, live cactuses, stirrups, bridles, Lone Ranger and Howdy Doody lunchboxes, and an acoustic guitar propped up in a corner.

And the creme da le creme? A 1973 Cowboys for Christ book prominently placed on the bed tray.

However, one of the best features is the Lone Ranger, Tonto, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and seven other figurines I can’t quite identify perched on a ledge over the windows.

At first, I thought these were reproductions. However, after talking to Larry I learned these are his toys from the 1940s and 1950s. They are all original. Even the child’s dusters nailed to the wall were his when he was five.

He’s seventy-something now.

When I first arrived I called friends and sent them pictures and we laughed and laughed about it. It’s both surreal and charming. It’s a deeply authentic throwback to a simpler time…of course, for many people, childhood is always reminiscent of a simpler, better time.

However, after spending nearly a week here I’ve come to appreciate something I’ve lost in my currently migratory life, when things fall apart it feels nice to sleep under the watchful eye of Tonto and some singing cowboys.