About Roy and Dale and Seymour

Probably the names Roy and Dale don't jump out at you. I'm talking about Roy Rogers and his wife Dale Evans. Maybe even now knowing their last names you still don't know who I mean. Wouldn't surprise me. Roy died in 1998 and Dale in 2001. That's not that long ago really, but we tend to forget people quickly. Roy and Dale are dead dead, not like Marilyn Monroe and some others who are alive dead. Nearly every antique shop I visit has some type of Marilyn memorabilia. Only one time have I seen a Roy Rogers item, and that was a 5 x 8 photo signed "Happy Trails," Roy Rogers. It was buried on a shelf with a $2 tag on it. I have never seen a Dale Evans item. 

Seymour isn't a who...it's a what. Seymour is a small central Wisconsin town whose sole claim to fame is that it is the site of the annual Outagamie County Fair. Outagamie County is pretty much nothing but small towns except for Appleton. Appleton has a much larger population than Seymour and was founded 20 years earlier, so I don't know why the fair ended up in Seymour but there it is. I'll get to what got me thinking about Roy and Dale and Seymour in a minute but first I want to explain how the topic came to mind in the first place.

In the last few days while on the internet reading news and what have you I have been receiving advertisements pointing me to articles about the closing of the Roy Rogers museum. I didn't know that there was a Roy Rogers museum so out of curiosity clicked on one of the links. It turns out that the museum closed in 2009. It took me awhile to come up with a theory as to why I'm getting these articles now. About a week ago I Googled birthdays on December 12 to see who else was born on that day. Going back to the museum article I saw that the museum was closed on December 12, 2009. I'm guessing that an algorithm in somebodies software matched the dates and automatically sent the information to me. I don't know how else to explain it.

It was sometime around 1974 that my ex-wife and son and I were in Seymour at the County Fair. So were Roy and Dale. Now, I've learned that memory is a piss-poor tool for recording and playing back history, but I do have some recollections of what I think I saw and thought during that day 46 years ago. 

It was a typical county fair with emphasis on future farmers and their animals. There were a few food and novelty kiosks. There was what looked to be a hastily erected small stage. I remember that there were various acts on the stage; singers, saw players, comedians and the like, all of them probably local, and all were accorded polite applause after their act was finished. Then Roy came on stage and sang a song, backed up by a small band. Then he gave a speech about how great it was to be in Seymour and how great the crowd was. I seem to remember that the 'crowd' was about 30 people. After the speech Roy got off the stage and mingled among those present but I don't think it was what he expected. Most of the folks paid little attention and I remember as he walked past me that he looked like just any other guy trying to find the restroom. 

Dale got on stage next. I don't remember if she sang, but I do remember her speech about how society was moving away from basic values. She talked about men being men and women being women and that both had natural roles in life. She scoffed at the women's liberation movement and the notion of unisex. She finished with something like, 'Am I right about that ladies?' I think she was expecting a rousing approval but instead there was almost a complete silence. Obviously the women in the sparse audience didn't share her views. 

Another memory I have of that day was one of Roy's crew announcing over the public address system that there were some men amongst the audience that had signed photos of Roy and Dale; that they sold for one dollar and they didn't have many of them. I bought one, I don't know why and I remember my ex-wife looking at me like I was crazy. The question did cross my mind, "Are they reduced to this?...playing county fairs and selling one dollar photos?"

I wondered about the careers of Roy and Dale. If you're playing the Outagamie County Fair in Seymour, you're either at the bottom of your entertainment career and just beginning or at the bottom and washed up. Roy and Dale were no longer celebrities...no longer household words. They had gone from being mainstream entertainers to successful business people. Roy lent his name to a restaurant chain, and had his image on everything from action figures to lunch buckets. There was a ton of Roy Rogers merchandise, which is why I'm surprised I don't see any in the antique shops. It's either in the hands of collectors or in landfills.

Roy started a museum that contained his stuffed horse Trigger and lots of other memorabilia. He reportedly told his children that if the museum ever became a financial burden to 'close it up.' As already stated the museum closed in 2009 and all of its contents were actioned off. 

I don't know what happened to the photo I bought that day, and was not tempted to buy the one I saw in an antique shop. Roy and Dale are gone, and I don't think it's likely that I'll be in Seymour again to see who is playing there these days.