He Never Met a Man That He Didn’t Like

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Let’s talk Will Rogers. If you fly into Oklahoma City you land at the Will Rogers World Airport. You’ll drive on the Will Rogers Turnpike. I’m sure some of you youngsters have maybe— maybe — heard the name, but nothing else. My generation knows the name well but not much. Will Rogers goes back to my grandparents’ generation. He was, in every sense of the word, an entertainer. He was a cowboy doing rope tricks (two of which are in the Guinness Book of World Records as never having been duplicated) in vaudeville, which took him to movies. His accurate but gentle wit made him a favorite on radio and in newspapers (he wrote a nationally syndicated column). He came and went before TV; however, every other medium of entertainment he had available, he used and conquered. A newsreel playing outside of the room devoted to the plane crash that took his life nearly 90 years ago pointed out that an estimated 50,000 people filed by his casket to pay their respects. And remember, this isn’t a politician we’re talking about. Just a simple humorist. His humor was definitely nonpartisan. “I don’t make jokes,” he once said, “I just watch the government and report the facts.” One of my favorites, which is still as true today as when he said it 95 years ago, is, “The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.” A gentle humor from a gentler time. It was great to spend time with the Cowboy Philosopher today. The photo is the “sinking gardens” where the Rogers family is buried. Behind it is a large statue of Rogers the cowboy on a horse.