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The outlook here at “Trivially Speaking” just got a little brighter. Not only did the sun come out giving the snow to the west a chance to melt but I received an invitation to present a program.

The pandemic and its cautions put a damper on presenting programs and the opportunities have been few and far between. Not that it’s hurt the revenue stream since I don’t charge, but it’s reduced the contacts I have to share.

The CEO likes it when the only non-management employee gets out and the occasional “free lunch” or breakfast is one fewer she has to provide.

So, I said to myself, “Back In the Saddle Again.”

Those of my vintage may have memories of when they first heard it.

For the younger set (and there are many), consider this an education.

Your “Funk & Wagnalls” would tell you the idiomatic phrase “back in the saddle” means someone has started to do an activity again that they once did in the past but was interrupted for a time.

The phrase came from the experience of cowboys (and jockeys) who had been hurt while riding (bucked off?) and returned to ride again after they had recovered.

It came into broader use in the late 1800s to refer to anyone who had a break in their activity and returned — like presenting programs, although I wasn’t around in the late 1800s.

The song “Back In the Saddle Again” has been associated with the late Gene Autry since 1939 although Gene wasn’t the first to record it or sing it in a motion picture (yes, they had movies in 1939, perhaps another column on that later).  That distinction belongs to Ray Whitley.

Ray wrote it for the western “Border G-Man” (June of 1938) starring George O’Brien, Laraine Day and Ray. Ray Whitley and his Six Bar Cowboys sang it and later recorded it for Decca Records.

Well, Gene heard it and liked it, so together with Ray he revised it and recorded his version in April of 1939. Gene performed it in his movie “Rovin’ Tumbleweeds.”

I probably don’t need to mention that neither of these films received any Oscar nominations.

But Gene liked the song so much that he introduced it as his theme song for “Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch,” which premiered over the CBS Radio Network on Jan. 7, 1940. Incidentally, the radio program ran until 1956.

Gene wasn’t done yet. “Back in the Saddle” was the title song for yet another Autry western for Republic Pictures in 1941. And then — believing audiences couldn’t get enough of him — Gene took his brand of singing western to television in 1950 and it ran for six years.

The radio show was interrupted in August of 1943 by Gene’s enlistment in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He flew cargo missions for two years as his duty assignment.

Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum — my preference to chew while I played basketball from 1955 to 1976 — sponsored Gene throughout his entire radio career.

His radio show changed little through the years. Each episode featured a western adventure interspersed with interludes of music. A highlight for naive youngsters was when Autry told a 10- to 15-minute story, fully dramatized, of some recent adventure. The plots were simplistic but so were the times in which the show was broadcast.

During the war years the songs leaned to the patriotic with numbers such as: “Private Buckaroo” and “I’ll Trade My Horse and Saddle for a Pair of Wings.”

Gene Autry was not just a hick cowboy from Oklahoma. He became one of the wealthiest men in Hollywood with investments in property and the Los Angeles Angels.

Berwyn, Okla., changed its name to Gene Autry in 1941; the town was near to Autry’s Flying A Ranch.

Thus, “I’m back in the saddle again/ Out where a friend is a friend/Where the longhorn cattle feed/On the lowly gypsum weed/Back in the saddle again.”

“Back in the Saddle Again” means for “Trivially Speaking” that I am available to present programs once more to nonprofit organizations. Interested groups (I’m free, no profit there either) can contact the scheduling agent at 970-667-1515.

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