volume one IN THE D U D L E Y C L A R K - Ohio Vine Tours

Although, looking back at it—which is not Roy’s way—
Christmas could be a little rough.
Like most kids, Roy loved Christmas. The colored lights
misted by fog; the metallic music emanating from outdoor
speakers; the increased largesse of passersby, whose occasional
donations of nickels, dimes and quarters would briefly flower into
folding money; the window dressings filled with unattainable
merchandise; the food wagons with free turkey and cranberry
sandwiches (Roy loves cranberries)—these memories were forever
burned into his mind.
One Christmas, Mom sewed him and his little bro miniature
Santa suits to wear as they stood in an icy drizzle holding
hand-painted Salvation Army signs, Roy ringing the bell, Rick
carrying the pail, and they managed to collect over four hundred
dollars before they were arrested.
Roy’s mind works like this—: he expends very little energy
revisiting his angst-y past, sifting through his crummy years in
search of clues as to the Why-ness or the How-ness of the Whoness
that he is. Roy does not retreat into self-pity, or gaze into his
twisty navel while nursing ancient woundsand picking psychic
scabs.
Roy doesn’t linger over the past while lounging in the future.
Not a Hedonist, not an Epicurean, not a Platonist, not a
Confucian, not Born Again, not a Sunni, not a Shi’ite, not a
Shintoist, not a Buddhist, not a Sikh, not a Moonie, not a Jain,
not a Baha’i, neither a Marxist nor a Neo-Marxist, not a Maoist,
not a Leninist, not a Keynesian nor a Whirling Dervish, not
a Webelo, not a Jeddi Knight, not a Jew, not a Wiccan, not a
Druid, not a Unitarian, not a Utopian, neither a Pagan nor a
Fabian, not a Druse, not a Scientologist, not a Zoroastrian, not a
Catholic—not even an Atheist, Anarchist, or Republican.
Roy is none of these.
Roy—if he must be categorized and pigeonholed, limited and
described—is, if anything, a Stoic.
For, if he is pushed, does he not leave? If he is pulled, does he
not follow?
Is he not as dust upon a millstone?
2 ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY