Bible Articles

C A R L   B.   G A R N E R ROY ROGERS and GENE AUTRY It was as regular as the calendar. Saturday afternoon for this 12-year-old meant catching the bus to the old Fort Worth Stockyards area, paying his nine cents and watching a double-feature at the New Isis Theater. Hopefully, it would include a movie with Gene Autry or Roy Rogers. As I look back on those days I sometimes wonder how my parents could let a 12-year-old ride the bus into that section of town and go to those movies without even the benefit of knowing the ratings for them? Well, first of all, it was a different world in which we lived; a world in which parents need not worry so much about their children on a bus alone as is true today. And, having seen those same old cowboy movies on the late show, I realize that children saw a different world. While Gene Autry was my favorite, he and Roy fought the same kind of battles. And they did it with a degree of honor that is not often seen on the modern screen, whether at the movies or on TV. Why can't Hollywood turn out a few movies in which the hero is honorable, honest, moral and courageous? Wouldn't our country be better off if the movies our kids and grand-kids were seeing exalted the same kind of values that Gene and Roy represented? The off-screen lives of that era's actors may not have been much to write home about, but at least their movies were not usually the "how-to-build-a-bomb-and-kill-forty-people" species so plentiful today. If you think our youth are not influenced by the movies and TV, tell me why the advertisers are paying so much for TV advertising? And why do the big conglomerates fight to get their cars, or beer, or cigarettes, or whatever in the background of a movie scene? You know the reason and so do I. It is because they know that if children see it on the screen, they will want it. And sometimes what they see is not what they should want or see. You may think that it is a bit too much to boycott all movies and all TV just because some of it is bad, but surely we can be careful--extra careful--what we allow our children to feed upon on Saturday afternoon or night or any time. Roy and Gene both died recently. But if we care for the spiritual and physical welfare of our young people we had better go back to the morality of that day, even farther back...all the way to the Bible. The whole world will be better for it. Thanks, Roy and Gene, for the good and wholesome entertainment you provided this 12-year-old. And all for only nine cents and bus fare.