Death comes to the Ponderosa

I guess it is two' fer Tuesday around here, but I can't let this pass without recognition. The last of the Cartwrights has passed away. Pernell Roberts, aka Adam Cartwright, is gone. The Ponderosa is silenced forever, as none of the brothers had children as far as we know. There wasn't a lot of dating on Bonanza, although Lord knows Hoss yearned for a girlfriend. I became a fan of Bonanza while living in Barecelona. The Cartwright family taught me to speak spanish. I have mentioned this before, so you two readers who remember it can forgive me. Every day at lunch I would sit down with a tuna bocadillo to watch Bonanza and follow along with their overdubbed dialogue. Eventually, the stucco guys working on the scaffolding outside got intrigued by the show and they would troop through my fourth floor window, lunch pails in hand and we would all crowd on the couch and watch the forthright Cartwrights make their mark on the west. The stucco guys called me "Bonanza." I liked that.

With the easy storylines and three new language coaches my spanish progressed rapidly, and I am proud (orgulloso!) that I retain a good bit of it today.

CNN had this to say about Pernell Roberts.

Roberts, a native of Waycross, Georgia, spent much of his adult life "pursuing his dream of equality for all," according to a family statement released by his lawyer, Richard Stone. Roberts walked alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the historic 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama, the family said. "On the set of 'Bonanza,' he protested the use of all-white crews and guest stars, finding some support but never enough to satisfy his sense of outrage," the statement said.

R.I.P. Pernell Roberts, aka Adam Cartwright- borderline outlaw on and off set.

Juancho