Everybody has Special People in their lives. Some we know only for a brief moment, some for a short time, others for a lifetime but there is just something about some people we run across in life that makes them very Special People. These are just but a few that have touched my life that I'd like to share with you.

When I was seven I went to live with my father and stepmother,for a while, on a dairy near Pumpkin Center, a little town near Bakersfield, California.

I was cross eyed, wore glasses and stuttered very badly and this new move and new school was a very painful experience as I was the new oddity to laugh at and make fun of. I couldn't wait to get home from school and get my chores done so I could go be alone and away from taunting people, under the willow trees at a creek near the dairy to watch the wildlife and occaisionally I became one of my Heroes, Hoppy, Gene or Roy and eradicated the bad guys that picked on people.

An occaisional Saturday at The Pumpkin Center Theater sitting in the dark, safe from staring eyes, I found comfort in watching Hoppy, Gene and Roy dispatching the bad guys and making things aright. I shall never forget the first Saturday I went with my folks to the Pumpkin Center Cattle Auction.

I was standing around looking at all the people noticing people giving me double looks and occaisionally pointing at me when a very kind looking grey haired man that looked like a typical West Texas farmer of that day came over and started talking to me. He was diffrent in the fact that he was very articulate with clean pressed khaki pants and shirt, with black high top brogan shoes, wire rimmed glasses and a large white Stetson hat. He started talking to me, not down to me, and seemed genuinely interested in learning about me and being friendly. This was the first stranger adult that had ever show a genuine interest in getting to know me and be so friendly. After a while of talking he said, "You know I've been thinking I need a new Partner. Would you like to be my Partner?" I felt so at ease with this kind man all I could say was, "Sure! I'd be glad to be your Partner!" He reached out and took my hand and said, "Well lets go find your folks and ask them if it would be alright if I took you on as my Partner."

After the deal was ok'ed, side by side, hand in hand off we went on a journey of one of the most special friendships I'll probably experience in my lifetime. Right away I noticed all the attention this kind man generated every where we went. People were always stopping us and saying things like, "Hey Mister Autry who's that ya got there with you?" He would say, "I've taken on a new Partner. This is my friend and new Partner Benny Davenport." He would introduce us and they would stick their hand out for a handshake and say, "Glad to meet you Mister Davenport. Any Partner of Mister Autry's has got to be alright." I knew there was something Special about this kind man and for the first time in my life I felt Special when I was with my Partner.

For the first time I couldn't wait for Saturday so I could go to the Cattle Auction and spend the day with my Partner and mingle with people and feel respect intead of ridicule. Usually when we arrived Mister Autry would already be there and it was not long til he would come get me and say, "Hi, I've been looking for you." We'd mix and mingle and glad hand the people for a while then go buy, sell and watch the cattle auction for a while then go down to the Ice Cream Parlor and have lunch. Then go back to the auction and mix and mingle. Every where we went he took my little hand in his and I could fell the love and kindness flow through this Special man.

It was probably about a month before I learned that this man I had grown to love with all my heart had a rather famous son named Gene who just happned to be my Silver Screen and Singing Hero! I suppose for the next few weeks I probably drove him near crazy asking everthing a seven year old Gene Autry Fan could possibly think to ask about Gene. He was very kind and tolerated my onslaught of questions and after we got that out of the way we had a very long friendship, about ten months, and very rarely spoke of Gene. Mister Autry was not Gene's Dad in my mind as much as he was my friend and Partner. I had grown to love that kind man with every fiber of my being.

A couple of years ago for my Birthday a friend gave me a four pack of Roy Rogers and a four pack of Gene Autry Western Video Movies and my 14 year old son Daniel saw and fell in love with them. I told him of my friendship with Mister Autry. A half century has passed and Mister Autry has long since left the earth and not a single time that I have ever pondered our friendship or spoken of him have I been able to keep a dry eye, this man was so Special! Not one time in half a century have I ever heard Gene sing "That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine" that I don't have a long reflection of Mister Autry. If Gene was right when he spoke of on the Silver Screen and sang of That Big Roundup In the Sky I know I'll be reunited with my Partner again. I love you Mister Autry. See ya Partner.

NOTE: Since the writing of this story both Roy Rogers and Gene Autry have passed away and Bill Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy) and John Wayne (The Duke) have been gone for quite some time. It's the end of an era and I'm sorry our youth of today don't have heroes like them to look up to.

I spent a lot of my youth living in the Los Angeles, California area. In 1955 and 1956 I lived in Glendale and attended Glendale High School. My buddy Mickey "Mouse" Leslie was the manager of the football team. On Friday nights at the game I had a prestigious seat sitting on the sidelines on a long wooden bench. On occaisions we had very special spectators, The Duke himself and his very lovely wife Pilar. Some of you may, as I do, may remember The Duke as "Singing Sandy" in early western movies. Others may remember him as the man that won World War II single handedly on a bulldozer in the Pacific. Others may only remember him for his fine movies in his later years but everyone that remembers him surely remembers him as Mister America, The Duke.

For a 16 year old boy to sit right next to The Duke and his lovely wife Pilar on a bench at a High School football game is an experience unto itself! They were always dressed to the nines. He wore a sport coat and slacks and what I remember most about Pilar other than being stunningly beautiful and always being dressed nice was the smell of her ambergris based perfume.

The Duke was Glendale High's most famous grad. He would kibitz with us kids and answer our questions about the current movie he was working on and was a very warm friendly person. Although he was the top box office movie star of the day I always felt like I was being talked to and never down to by a man that had one of the most charismatic personalities of anyone I've ever spoken with.

All of the Special People I've come in contact with in my life I've learned something from. In The Duke's case I was in awe of the way he handled himself and the way he was so courteous to a bunch of teenagers clamoring to him after the game was over seeking his time and attention, wanting to talk to him personally. Having sat next to him through the entire game and talking to him all that time I had the opportunity to stand back and observe this. Later in my life as an adult after entertaining somewhere as a musician or after giving a lecture to a class of doctors in a seminar when the crowd started to disperse and a group started towards me I always knew how to treat them with respect and dignity and I'm proud to say I learned that from a Master. The Duke was a Class Act unto himself. I'll see ya later, Pilgrim.

What can one say about the very best friend of their whole life? I first met Don when we were 20. I was just out of the Navy, for about a year, where I had been introduced to the guitar and found I had a real passion for learning to sing and play like my idols Jimmie Rogers, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. Having such a passion for it I kept my beloved guitar with me at all times. I was visiting my sister in West Covina, California one day and she said, "A couple of houses down from us a couple lives there and their nephew comes over and plays the guitar a lot. He's down there now would you like to go over and meet him?" When we reached out and clapsed hands that was the start of a bond of friendship like none other in my lifetime.

Shortly after we met, Don's Aunt and Uncle moved back to Oklahoma and their daughter, Don's cousin, Betty and her husband Dave Matevia moved in the house with their kids. Dave and Betty's became our focal point where we met and played a lot. Don was already married and had kids and I started dating a girl that played guitar and sang and soon after that we got married and had kids.

Don was a machinist, Dave and Betty had a sand and gravel company and I worked for a roofing company so there was a real down to earth blue collar bonding there. I worked hard all week waiting for the week end at Betty and Dave's for some enjoyable playing and good food, drink and friendship. Don had already been playing for a few years and played lead in clubs and the jam sessions at Betty and Dave's on Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons is where I really learned to play guitar. Don and Betty had another cousin, Billy Joe Bell that played guitar and sang that used to join us a lot.

Don and I had a lot in common. Both originally from small west Texas towns, both from large families and either of us would rather get together and play music than sleep, breathe or eat. Don kept hounding me to play out with him and I kept telling him, "No, I'm not good enough yet." He kept telling me, "Baloney, your better than the people I play with." Finally I got the courage up and for a while I wouldn't play for anyone but Don. After a while when I felt like I'd learned enough from him I would even play with out him. I'll never forget one night I was playing lead without Don and we got ready to take a break and a woman that I had never seen before walked up to the bandstand and said to me, "I'll bet I know who taught you how to play the guitar." I said, "Oh yeah and who might that be?" She said, "Don Brown."

I just kept feeling closer and closer to my best friend and the entire Brown family has always treated me as one of their own. My mother and Don's dad dated for a while and one of my uncles was married to Don's sister for a while.

The first time I sat down with Don I felt like I'd known him all my life. Over the years we've gone through divorces with vindictave wives raining fire and brimstone from Hell on us giving us a hard time about seeing our kids, various other wives raining various other things on us, family feuds, earthquakes, floods, pulling and pushing each others broken down cars, droughts and probably a plague of locusts or two. All the while being each others sounding boards and just being there for a friend.

In 1975 due to an emotionally tough time in my life I decided to move back to Texas. Don and I sat and played our last tune together and I gave him my amp and left. I didn't see Don again until about 1982 when he came to Fort Worth, Texas to visit one of his cousins. He was with his fiance Regina, whom he had know from years before, and they where on their way to Stillwell, Okahoma to get married. They were going to see Don's Aunt and Uncle and Dave and Betty Matevia that had moved there years before. Of course I had to go to the wedding and the cousins Betty, Don and Benny were together again after all those years and those few days were a highlight in my life.

I next got to see Don and Regina at a Brown Family reunion in west Texas in 1986 with my toddler son Daniel. The cousins were together again Betty, Don, Billy Joe and Benny, making those few days another highlight in my life.

In 1989 I packed up the dog and my then five year old son and went to Los Angeles to visit for a while and on the way my car blew a radiator way out in the dessert after I went through Phoenix. There was a motel, gas station, and resturant a few miles from where I broke down. The station didn't have a raditor and it would take a few days to ship one in. A phone call to Don Brown and the next morning he came rolling in to pick me up just like always when I was having car trouble. On that trip I had not recovered from a head injury, I recieved in an industrial accident in 1984, enough to be able to pick and grin with my old guitar playing partner and although that was depressing just getting to spend time with Don and Regina was a real delight.

Don and I have stayed in touch over all the years of seperation with an occaisional phone call and each one is like we just talked yesterday. A couple of months or so ago while we were talking it came up in conversation that I was on the internet, well Don said Regina used it too. Now Regina and I exchange e-mails. God I love the internet! Don's cousin Betty and Dave divorced about eight years ago and Betty has remarried and moved to the state of Washington. Regina e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago and said Betty had just gotten a computer and the next day there was an e-mail from Betty! Now if Regina can teach Betty how to open and read attachments we'll all be in touch even more.

Laurel had Hardy. Poncho had Cisco. And I'm one of the luckiest people alive, I've got Don Brown for a friend. I feel very sorry for the people that go through life and don't ever find a friendship like I've had with Don Brown for the last 38 years. What I've learned from this Special Person is don't let any outside influence, and believe me we've had plenty, come between the friendship you feel for each other. Although we've been seperated by a lot of time and distance and times have changed nothing changes about the way I feel about my best friend. The next time we sit down together it will seem like yesterday was the last time we visited.

Now that my son Daniel is 14 I'm starting to wonder what I will do with my time when he gets out own his own. Maybe I'll move back to Southern California. Hey Don, "Could you use a rhythm man?" You can bet your rhinestone studded boots on any given Friday or Saturday Night somewhere in Southern California there is someone dancing to the music of Don Brown. Hey Don, "How about Waltz Across Texas!"

In about 1967 I was walking through a strip mall in Pomona, California and noticed an artists studio with some strikingly beautiful oil paintings displayed in the window. I walked over to have a look. I was taken in by the style and beauty of them and was standing in awe enjoying the eye candy when i noticed an artist at work in the middle of the studio.

Watching him work, he finished a stroke of the canvas and turned around and flashed a big smile and waved. Little did I know the next few compelling steps I took inside that studio would have a major impact on my life for all the years to come.

His work was the best I had seen and instantly he became my all time favorite artist. I was impressed with the great detail he put in all his work and he always had a new medium to experiment with.

He took a break and I believe we may have shared a glass of wine and had the friendliest most pleasant first conversation I've ever experenced. There was an instant bonding and I knew this man had something special that I envied and wanted. That special something was the most positive attitude I had ever seen and the greatest love for his wife Doris and his teenage son Rick and his work and life in general. It flowed from every fiber of his being.

At that time in my life I was searching for my spiritual awareness and being and meeting and growing to love Ralph and Doris was a real highlight and turning point in my life. Besides their life example Ralph introduced me to the book that's had the most impact on my life, "The Magic of Believing."

Ralph as a hobby was interested and loved playing music and my wife at the time, that was a part time musician with me, and I had recently converted our attached double car garage into a sound proof music room/den where we lived with our six year old son Benny Allen (see ogeretla's Net Buds and ogie's Bad Photography) and our five year old daughter Tina in Ontario, California. Ralph played drums and left them set up in our den and we spent many nights jamming til the wee hours enjoying Ralph and Doris's company along with another special person Don Brown (see item above).

To give you an example of Ralph's sense of humor I had commissioned Ralph to paint me two western revolvers in seperate frames. I told him I wanted them on black velvet shadowed for a 3D effect and tilted down at an angle facing each other to hang in my den. When he delivered them they hung bautifully on the wall about a foot and a half apart with a third four inch by four inch framed painting on velvet of two bullets crashing to each other and fragmenting at just the proper angle as if both pistols had been fired simultaneously, hanging below and between them.

Having Ralph and Doris share such big parts of their life whith us was an unexplainable joy. Spending time in their happy home was an absolute delight. I was always impressed with the easy warm feeling there on Benbow in West Covina. I was always impressed when we woud be sitting around enjoying their good company when their son Rick would come in and out and how nice and polite he was. You could feel the love and respect in the air in the Baker house. I have said for many years that Rick was one of the nicest most polite youg men I had ever casually encountered and understandably so being reared by such warm loving folks as Ralph and Doris.

Many enjoyable week ends were enjoyed by my family driving all over Southern California attending art shows where Ralph was displaying his work in beautiful places like Rancho and Palmdale.

We started attending the Church Ralph and Doris did on occasion and getting to know and love them has been one of the most spiritually rewarding parts of my life. I got divorced and moved to Texas and kept in touch with an ocasional phone call but due to many moves and them moving I lost contact with them for many years, all the while trying to relocate them periodicly.

In some of our many philosophical conversations Ralph and I agreed if a person has love and is doing what he loves best for a profession and is getting by he/she is a success. That being the case Ralph and Doris are two of the most successful people I have known. Our sons gew into fine men and are success in their fields too.

After years of trying to track Ralph and Doris down one day I saw Rick on television and had a duh thought, maybe I might be able to get in touch with him. I got in touch with his assistant Heidi, at his commpany, and she graciously told me send them a letter to her and she would forward it to them. Oddly enough that occured on Halloween. Seems like little Rick was still making monsters as he was as a young man.

Ralph called and as I would have expected nothing otherwise one of the first things he told me after being out of touch for all those years was how much he loved his family.

Ralph and Doris have retired and are living in a beautiful area of Nortwest Washington state. After quite a period of time of mail and phone calls Ralph entered the computer age. Ya gotta love the internet, and we e-mail frequently now too.

Another odd turn in life. My son Daniel when he discovered movies liked the special effects and started following the work of the artists. He discovered a boyhood hero in Rick and said he wanted to be a special effects man like him. Daniel had never asked for anything he didn't have in life until a while back he said one day, "Dad do you know what I'd like to have more than any thing?" I said, "No what?" He said, "An autographed picture of my hero Rick Baker." Well due to Ralph and Doris' love and compassion, and Rick's graciousness, they made a very nice young man's dream come true.

My most prized physical possession for the last thirty years has been a large painting on black velvet of my musical hero Johnny Cash painted by Ralph and given to me as a gift. Not one single day of all these years has gone by without me seeing it and it reminding me of them. Many times over the years when life was really tough and some tough situation would come up oft times I would look at my picture and ask myself, "I wonder how Ralph might react to this situation and what would be the most positive decision I can make?"

For the last couple of years I have been trying to make Daniel aware of his spiritual nature and training. I'm trying to teach him the most important thing in life is to have special friendships that death can't even destroy and therein lies your lifes rewards and richness.

Ralph and Doris your taking interest in a young mans life when he is just learning to form special relations with people is exemplary of your loving, positive nature that has always made me love and respect you so. Your e-mails and little goodies in the mail are precious to him. I feel certain after you and I are long gone one day when Daniel sits to write or talk about his Special People you will be at the top of his list in his young life as Mr. Autry was in mine.

I just hope on occasion you can think of me and know someone loves you with all their heart and it brings you a peaceful feeling like my thinking of you has done on so many numerous times in my life. Ralphie B. and Doris Baker you are truly my Heroes and Very Very Special People. Thank you for helping make me rich and successful.

October 3, 1999 I recieved word from Ralph that his Sweet Doris of 56 years had passed away. We will hold dear the happy memories of her. Love you, Doris.

December 1999 Daniel and I went to visit Ralph at his home in Washington. After Dan seeing soome of Raplph's paintings Ralph is his favorite artist now also.:)

On December 6, 2002 Ralph passed away. I have a great big hole in my heart now.