Old Penny Poem by Robert Edgar Burns

Take a five year old boy
And Old Yeller!
And a grandma and grandpa too.
Then wait till the end of the movie,
To see whose tears are moistening you!

Take a boy we used to call Moochie,
Who played on the Mickey Mouse Club!
Boy was he a cute rascal
With his Prickly Pear Poison Ivey rub!

Take Fess Parker whose real name Ellisha,
Just sounds too much like a girl’s.
But have him play a daddy
He tried it and gave it a whirl!

Along the way he was Daniel Boone,
Or maybe Davy Crocket you see.
Of course we know he played both of them,
The audience has short memories we!

Take the older brother actor Tommy Kirk,
Also a great Mouseketeer.
Fired by Disney himself for being gay,
Rehired, re-fired, one day!

Dorothy McGuire who played the mom
In several movies with all of these guys.
Fess Parker and she and Chuck Connors
All Three, now in heaven right up in the sky.

This movie still is a timeless piece.
When I watch it I know I will cry.
But I identify with everyone here,
The dog, children, parents, no lie!

I owned a dog that looked exactly like
The one of Old Yeller fame.
She died protecting me from a rattlesnake,
“Old Penny” was my doggy’s name!

I wrote a tribute to her when still a lad.
I titled it “A Boy’s Best Friend! ”
Just like “Old Yeller” if I read it today,
I’ll be crying for certain again!