ADVICE TO THE WORLD

ELSON IRWIN writes:
What I would tell the world would be what my father told me on his deathbed when I was just eleven years old. He knew, of course, that I was a great western movie fan, so he said to me, "Elson, always ride the white horse." It didn't take a nuclear scientist to understand that bit of advice.
In the majority of the old western films, the "good guy" rode the white horse: Buck Jones, Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, Bob Steele, Charles Starrett, Ken Maynard. (Several didn't such as Gene Autry and that Roy feller, but then, they weren't real cowboys.) The super "good" guys rode white horses and wore white hats. There was a certain significance in that. The bad guys wore black hats and had black mustaches. To this very day, it is difficult for me to trust anyone who has a black mustache. So, the immortal words are: "Ride the White Horse." I have tried to live by that credo. I have not always succeeded, but it's kept me out of jail.
I would like to have etched on my tombstone: "He rode the white horse."

JR: Elson is responding to Joe Holly's question "If you had the opportunity to tell the world one thing, what would that one thing be?" I like Elson's answer because it is only five words, yet it carries so much meaning.