BILLINGSGATE POST: The most famous dead horse in the world will be joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg at a museum in Branson, Missouri, where Roy Rogers’ faithful steed Trigger is displayed.
Trigger was a horse, of course. Like Ginsburg, who graduated first in her class at Harvard, Trigger was very intelligent. Although not able to get into an Ivy League college because of now-illegal restrictive enrollment policies, the studly Palomino was the horse who got Rogers from here to there. Although Trigger died in 1965, he was stuffed and mounted by Taxidermist to the Stars, Dr. Viscount Billingsgate. One of the few taxidermists to receive a doctorate in this under-appreciated profession, Hollywood honored Billingsgate by awarding him an Oscar in 1962 for stuffing and mounting sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe.
It is ironic that Ruthie will join Trigger in Branson. Both received unconditional love from their fans. It seems like there wasn’t a child in the world from the late 1930s into the 1950s that didn’t instantly recognize the name Trigger. He was a cowboy’s best friend, a high rearing, fast-running four-legger that could shoot a gun and untie ropes, but still allow the weakest and most timid of children to jump in the saddle with him. Other than being of different gender, Ruthie elicited similar feelings from her coterie of liberated women, who dreamed that, up upon her back, they could be heroes, too.
Displayed together, they will bring sunshine into the lives of people worldwide. Both, in their own way, will bring encouragement and hope to people of all stripes and colors.
Slim: “Destiny brings together strange bedfellows.”
Dirty: “Yo, Dude. They both belong together in the dustbin of history.”
