Every week I looked forward to Bonanza and nothing would get in my way of watching it. Lorne Greene as BEN, and his sons Adam, Little Joe, and Hoss took us back to a very different country and the wild west of Virginia City. I loved Hop Sing (the cook) and some of the rants he would go on.

Coach Schmidli, my Salida High School football coach, used to call me Hoss ... that was better than the other nickname he gave me. And no, don't ask what that was.