Does anyone remember Saturday mornings back in the day when the wind blew over the wheat field and the masked man thundered across the Earth on the great white stallion?

We knew he was coming when we heard the blare of the trumpets from William Tell’s Overture and heard Fred Foy’s legendary opening to the show.

“Hi-Yo, Silver! A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty ‘Hi-Yo Silver’ … The Lone Ranger! With his faithful Indian companion, Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early Western United States. Nowhere in the pages of history can one find a greater champion of justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. From out of the past come the thundering hoof-beats of the great horse Silver. The Lone Ranger rides again!”

And the Lone Ranger was a champion of justice. How thrilling it was to have a hero who was the embodiment of every admirable quality.

We believed in him. He always did what was right and he proved to us, his young audience, that good triumphs over evil.

The bad guys never came out on top. Even very young children know when someone is breaking the rules. They know when someone is cheating, stealing and in general breaking the rules of society.

The Lone Ranger was safe for us to watch.

Today, there is little entertainment offered on television or at the movies that is actually good for children. When you think of what could have been done with this technology and see what has been done with it, it is simply mind-boggling.

As the years have marched on since the Lone Ranger, the tube has gone down the tubes for the most part. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. The sad thing is that quality programming for children is the exception.

The most worrying thing about major network entertainment is there really isn’t a safe time to leave a child alone to watch. You never know what they might see. Some of the commercials aired are as scandalous as the shows they’re sandwiched between. Most of my friends and acquaintances don’t commit homicides, distribute drugs, use obscene language, rob liquor stores or speak disrespectfully to their parents.

Is there some kind of computer program script writers use that automatically inserts gutter language into every sentence characters speak? That would explain a lot.

What happened?

Where is the Lone Ranger when you need him? Wouldn’t it be great if just once more he could ride in and clean up everything in our world that is wrong?

He could do it. He always came in at the last minute and saved the day. I think it’s high time the Lone Ranger rode again. I think I’ll just wait for that to happen.