NEWTON'S LAW: MAKE-BELIEVE WITH LITTLE JOE IN THE PONDEROSA OF THE MIND

Days of misspent youth are not necessarily misspent; they can be recycled as nostalgia.

In a magazine article not long ago, actress Michelle Pfeiffer was discussing games of make-believe from her girlhood. She and her friends would play "Gilligan's Island" and an argument would always ensue about who got to be Ginger.

Pfeiffer is now a major movie star who commands large salaries and top leading men. Tina Louise who played the glamorous, attention-starved Ginger, shipwrecked physically and morally has since been consigned with Loretta Swit and Sally Struthers to that netherworld of television actresses who once were but now aren't.

Still, there is this homage to be paid. Something about Tina Louise moved some people to want to be like her and remember it years later. It says something about how we regard people who make up our popular culture.

This came to mind in recent days with the death of Michael Landon. I vaguely recall at some point in my youth having a Michelle Pfeiffer-type disagreement over which of my gang got to be Little Joe in our shoot-em-up Westerner game.

Those were carefree days, before we knew of the need for political correctness. We were unabashed about a good session of cowboys and Indians; fighting the noble red man took place on the silver screen so we couldn't believe it was insensitive to fight their fictitious ancestors in our back yards.

We knew not a bit about war toys and the hazards they allegedly posed our good natures; cap guns resounded from behind every bush.

No Indians showed their faces at the pretend Ponderosa so we had to make due blasting away highwaymen and other desperadoes. And the bidding always favored Little Joe, the youngest Cartwright, portrayed by Landon on the television show "Bonanza."

It was not much of a contest, really. No one I ran with wanted to be Ben Cartwright, the clan's patriarch; my advancing age has produced some envy for his oak furniture and leather chairs, but emulating Lorne Greene was out of the question back then.

Hoss, who was played by Dan Blocker, was a good ol' boy but too aptly named; he was a bit of a load for young kids. Adam, played by Pernell Roberts, was the Lou Reed of upstate Nevada, all mysterious and dressed in black leather; no one was hip enough for that in those days.

Little Joe was the choice. He had respect for his elders, yet carried the impetuousness of youth and could sling a gun from the left side, which seemed exotic.

He was a black-and-white protagonist in my youth and looked even better when you saw him in color the first time. We did that visiting a relative's house on a Sunday evening and could talk of nothing else on the drive home but the Ponderosa's lovely acreage and that vivid NBC peacock.

While it doesn't mean anything really, you hang on to silly memories. Cancer caught up to Little Joe. Age and reality sadden you from time to time, and you get meager comfort, and maybe a slight smile, from the daydreams that once was your world.