Trigger For Sale

I watched Roy Rogers and Dale Evans a lot.  I’ll admit right now that I always thought Dale was a waste of time.

One Christmas, my parents gave my sister and me life like action figures.  I got Roy and my sister got Tonto. No Lone Ranger in sight. Nor much logic in the choice of toys.

 I got the plastic palomino, Trigger, the molded hat that fit onto Roy’s head and Roy’s thighs splayed in a giant U.  I think my sister felt gypped.

This week I heard that the taxidemied Trigger was up for sale.  Of course I knew that he’d been stuffed and was a star attraction in Apple Valley and then, later, in Branson, Missouri.  Roy and Dale are long gone. I think, Roy Jr. must have needed some money and so Trigger went on the market.

They said Trigger was estimated to go for somewhere between $100 and $200 thousand.  I will admit it here that there was a tiny iota of me that wanted to buy him.  How the hell a stuffed horse would fit in my living room and survive the UV rays of the Hawaiian sun, I don’t know.  Sometimes, you just want something that isn’t possible.  I didn’t share this dream with anyone, just tucked it away with my unrequited desire to get the Mattel belt buckle with a derringer that shot caps. 

Trigger went up—stuffed and mounted—for bid at a Christie’s auction.  The selling pricing was $266,500 to someone in Nebraska. I hope they appreciate him. Roy did. And I did.

He MIGHT have fit in the living room.