Happy Trails Are Here Again

The King of the Cowboys and the Queen of the West came riding into town the other day. In a white stretch limo.

“I think we’d both break in two if we tried to get on a horse,” said Dale Evans, 82, laughing.

“My bowling ball gets heavier and my horse gets taller every year,” said Roy Rogers, 83. His heart isn’t the best and “with all the kids I’ve got, I want to stay around as long as I can.”

Say “kids,” and Roy’s and Dale’s faces light up like a starry sky way-out-West. They’ve had nine--his, hers and theirs, five of them adopted--and are doting grandparents of 15 and great-grandparents of 29.

So when Pepper Edmiston, a Pacific Palisades children’s advocate, drove over to Victorville to tell the couple she wanted to start a cowboy camp for disabled kids and call it “Happy Trails,” they had readily agreed.

They said yes again when Edmiston asked if they’d be guests of honor at a fund-raiser at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu.

When Dale says, “We have a special affinity for these children,” it’s not empty rhetoric. Their daughter Robin, who had Down’s syndrome, died when she was 2. A disabled son, Sandy, died at 18. Their daughter Debbie was killed in a church bus accident when she was 12.

Invitations to last Sunday’s barbecue bore a photo of the couple as they appeared in the 26 films they made together, starting in 1944.

The “Happy Trails” benefit was also a wedding anniversary celebration for Hollywood’s most famous cowboy and cowgirl--their 47th. They were married on Dec. 31, 1947.

(As Dale told it in their new autobiography, “Happy Trails,” Roy proposed at a Chicago rodeo. “We were on our horses, in the chutes, when Roy said, ‘What are you doing New Year’s Eve?’ ” He slipped a ring on her finger and galloped into the arena before she had time to answer.)

In his pin-striped cowboy suit, boots and trademark white Stetson, still reed-slim if a bit stiff in the knees, Roy Rogers still has his crinkly-eyed cowboy charm.

“I’ve been in love with Roy and Dale my whole life,” said Laura Plotkin, 49. “He was the first man, after my father, I had a crush on.” Today, she’d had a chance to tell him.

There were pony rides, sack races, hay rides and Western tunes by the Overland Express. Midafternoon, the crowd gathered at the bandstand for a few words from Edmiston on behalf of the children with cancer, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and other conditions, who have a chance to be “rootin’, tootin’ buckaroos” at “Happy Trails.”

Edmiston’s son David, 20, suffered severe brain damage as a result of treatments that cured his leukemia when he was 2. “This camp,” she said, “is created in his honor and for all the other children who deserve to have fun.”

Then it was time for an impromptu Roy-and-Dale stand-up routine.

Dale: “When I was a little girl, I used to dream that when I grew up I was going to marry Tom Mix. He had the prettiest horse in the world.”

Roy: “That was before Trigger.”

They spoke of their own special children. And they exchanged affectionate chitchat.

Roy: “I was blessed also with a wonderful horse.” Turning to Dale, he hastened to add that he wasn’t comparing her to Trigger.

Dale: “Trigger always got top billing.”

Finally, Roy and Dale led everyone in singing “Happy Trails to You.” They sounded good.

And they can still wow a crowd. Young and old flocked around.

“My mom and dad and I used to sit around and watch Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (on TV). When they sang ‘Happy Trails,’ the whole family would break into it,” recalled Dianne Ford of Malibu. Her daughter, Colleen, a talented 12-year-old, belted out a song for the anniversary couple.

As the band played “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You,” 12-year-old Elisa Moraes, a developmentally disabled child, pushed Ryan Hill, 13, around the dance floor in his wheelchair.

Ryan was one of the first-year campers. For the first time, said his mother, Diane, of Pacific Palisades, “He was part of everything. He can’t walk, but he can ride a horse, with support.” And he could hike. “Pushing a wheelchair at 9,000 feet gets a little tough, but we tied a sweater to both ends of his chair and two people pulled and one pushed.”

At day’s end, the white limo whisked Roy and Dale back to the Mojave Desert, where there are plans for a RogersDale theme park.

Edmiston was pleased. The barbecue will help underwrite this June’s camp at Coffee Creek Ranch in Redding.

And the predicted rain had stayed away. She was never really worried, she claimed.

When she’d called Roy Rogers Jr. (Dusty), about a rain check date, he’d told her, “You know, my mom’s got connections upstairs.”

Oy, What a Christmas Party

His friend Dr. Harold La Briola, 77, a professor at USC School of Medicine, said: “We’ve got a spot in Catholic heaven for him. It’s all arranged.”

His friend Diane Fuqua, an orthopedic technologist at the hospital, said: “He’s our honey.”

He is Dr. Herman Epstein, 88, a retired orthopedic surgeon who is the County-USC Medical Center’s Jewish Santa Claus. Even though he doesn’t believe in Christmas, for almost 50 years he’s made sure Santa remembers the children who do.

It’s a tradition that began in 1945 when Epstein, then a resident in orthopedics at the hospital, began thinking about how many material things his own children had, and how few his pediatric patients possessed.

“We asked our kids if they’d mind if we took their toys” to the youngsters, he recalled. Over the years, his little ward party grew so big that it had to be moved to the auditorium.

In those early days, Epstein played Santa. He and his wife, Beatrice, brought peanut butter, milk and cookies, and volunteer nurses made sandwiches. When it got “so large I couldn’t afford it,” he began asking friends and family for money or toys.

At Monday’s party, $18,000 worth of new toys were stacked onstage--games, stuffed animals, trucks, dolls. Mariachis played as the children, all orthopedic outpatients, and their families filed in.

Volunteers frantically filled huge Santa sacks with toys.

“I have a 9-year-old boy and two girls, 6 and 8 . . . “

“Two boys, 7 and 5 . . . “

More than 100 families, many with three or four children, would go home happy. “Feliz Navidad,” said the men in the Santa suits--Epstein’s son Norman, 58, and family friend Shelly Balzac.

Some children stopped by to thank Epstein, who sat on the sidelines, fretting, “We don’t have much of a crowd.” It was smaller than in years past, and some speculated that Proposition 187 was a factor, although the hospital has tried to make clear that it’s not turning away illegal immigrants.

Earlier, as his son suited up, Epstein grew melancholy. His health has been frail and, he lamented: “This may be my last year.” This would have been the 50th party, but for one year, 1962, when he was teaching in Vietnam.

All six of the doctor’s offspring have been involved. This year, grandson Scott, 35, was a camera-toting elf.

“We’re passing it down,” said Norman Epstein, Scott’s father. “This is going to go on for 100 years.”

Then, turning to his dad, he asked, “How are we going to let you know?”