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When I was three I was in love with two actors: Gene Autry, the singing cowboy, and Jimmy Dodd, the guitar-playing, ever-smiling leader of the Mouseketeers.
Now, at three, being in love meant wanting a guy to be my daddy. (Yeah I know some pretty well-grown women who still want that!) No, really! No offense to my real dad, but in my fantasies I would be hanging out with the Mousketeers, and Annette would get all jealous and arrange to have me kidnaped by villains, but the Gene Autry would rescue me and I'd go live with him for a while. Soon some other villains would show up and have it out with Gene, but some local Indians would take me in, and I would try to convince them to help me rescue Gene, but instead they would return me to Jimmy Dodd, who'd been looking for me all this while of course, and it would be all I could do to explain to him that, no, Gene didn't kidnap me... and then Gene would come and rescue me... except....
Where in the world did all this trash come from? Who or what put such melodrama into my head? (And what did I have against Annette, anyway?) This fantasy and all its variations lasted from about 1955 to 1958 and although this covers a time when I certainly could read, I wasn't reading anything like that!
Looking back, I can see that Autry stood for a lot for which I don't care, but I really know nothing of Dodd and therefore choose to retain at least the hope that he was, indeed, a good guy, worthy of the adoration I bestowed upon him.
At any rate, there was just something that turned me on about a guy (especially a guy on horseback) with a guitar!
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