Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Tom Mix Memories

After writing about Superman the other day, my mind began to tease me with Tom Mix. This mind is unruly and naughty as a mind can get; moreover, I have an annoyingly persistent one. For decades, even yoga and meditation could not tame it; so, what else could I do but give in to it.

The human Tom Mix was an American actor, a western megastar who died before I was born, but the comic-book Tom Mix was a real cartoon cowboy, a U.S. Marshall, a Captain in the army, a commando, a sheriff, and a man who single-handedly saved the day, and we in our childhood memorized his adventures in every single comic book that was published periodically. Was it weekly or monthly, memory fails me, but we were his fans and adhered to his cartoon adventures religiously. Any issues missed would have to be made up by borrowing from others.

Although all the suspense and thrill I felt is only a memory and I can't even tell the plot of even one issue, I know Tom Mix's horse was a special one. I think its name was Tony or Lightning, but I might be mixing its name up with another comic book hero's horse, as comic books for us were the TV episodes of the times, and secrets like the secret salute, secret handshakes, and such added to the limelight of our childhood days.

I know I made my mother worry. Having a tomboy daughter was the last thing she wanted as she herself was a pretty woman who loved high fashion. She'd rather have a child who loved frilly hats and white gloves. At times, she forced those things on me, but her persistence was met with my temper tantrums. Truth is, after all that trauma, I never wore frilly hats and white gloves, not even in my wedding.

I also abandoned my Tom Mix addiction as soon as I entered my teens and discovered Elvis, whose singing motions annoyed the grown-ups. In hindsight, however, my love of fiction began with Tom Mix and earlier with the Comtesse de Segur books, with the misbehaving Sophie and her cousins, which my mother read to me. I guess Sophie's stories were my first introduction to Chick Lit.

But Tom Mix was my own doing despite the resistance of the grown-up females, my first rebellion against the mind-set of society concerning young girls. Probably that's why I still remember Tom Mix with affection.