I sent Bill Bender a scan of the post card of the original Roy Rogers museum and mentioned Bill on the back as one of the areas best western artists. Bill was a friend of my dads, and taught dad to paint. Ive been keeping in touch with Bill and his wife, Helen for a couple of years, now. I knew he would enjoy seeing that postcard. He fired back this immediate answer. Then sent another email saying hed added to his memory, but the second email disappeared from his computer and he was resending it by snail mail. But I wrote back that Id actually received that second email, so he didnt need to send it. Then I lost it from my computer. The gremlins were busy. So this is the first memory, and if he can recreate what he wrote before, Ill send the second bit when I received it. They were long time good friends. Western Artist, Bill Bender writes about memories of Roy Rogers About Roy Rogers. When I first met him in the 30s I was still in high school, but was breaking mustangs after school that I bought at the auction in Los Angeles. I could get them for $5.00 and at the most $10.00. I had a cowboy friend that was old enough to drive so hed haul me and my horse trailer up to the auction. On Saturdays 4 or 5 of us would go for rides on our horses. One of the riders was my friend, Bill Oakes and his girl-friend, Margie. He had a friend that went along with us now and then. His name was Leonard Slye. Len couldnt ride very well, and he drove a dump truck for a living. Hed come over and watch me break out my mustangs. The last I saw of him is when I graduated high school and headed off to the High Sierras to work as a packer. I also rode in a few movies. They made one around Lone Pine. The next time I bumped into Len . . . he was a big time movie star by name of ROY ROGERS. Unbelievable. Well, we were close friends ever since. Until the day he died. Gotta go, the propane man arrived and hes a new driver.. BILL
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 00:06:02 +0000
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