THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY - MERRY FLORENE TO HOUSTON

'GUNSMOKE'

"HILL GIRL"

'THE ROCKFORD FILES'

"WHERE'S HOUSTON?"

Two for Tuesday, Part Two!

When Newly O'Brien (distantly related to my own televersion) "rescued" Merry Florene from her no-good half-brothers and brought her to Dodge City, Matt Dillon suggested that Newly introduce her to Mr. Jonas at the general store and see if he could get her a job in the store.

Jonas did better than that.  Besides promising to pay her four dollars a week in wages, he gave her a new dress to wear and shoes as well.  He was even willing to order a larger pair (probably from Levinson's Dry Goods in Ohio) if the pair he gave her weren't comfortable.  He said he would take it out of her wages, but it was O'Bvious that was never going to happen.

And when Merry Florene returned a bracelet that she had taken from his display case, Jonas told her to keep wearing it.  It had been on display for over a year and nobody expressed any interest in wearing it, so why shouldn't she continue to do so?  (I think he splained it away as being good advertising.)

No matter what she did - and there were worse things to come! - Mr. Jonas just couldn't get angry at her.  And it was more than being a good samaritan.  He recognized Merry Florene for who she really was - his own daughter.

Mr. Jonas - and it's hard enough to believe it to look on him - was a playuh.  He "sparked" a lot of the women-folk living in Dodge and the surrounding area when they came in to his store.  Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn't.  But it definitely resulted in the births of three young women - Merry Florene of the Hill People, the outlaw Allie Sommers, and a dance hall girl known only as "Lucky".

The power of telegenetics was strong not only in Merry Florene and her sisters, but also in their father, Mr. Jonas.  In fact the pairing of them would repeat itself several generations later, when Peter Preli raised his granddaughter Houston Preli.  He looked like Mr. Jonas and she looked like Merry Florene.  

Sadly, Pete Preli was killed to cover up a botched fake kidnapping of Houston Preli, but luckily a private eye named Jim Rockford was able to save the day.

By the way, one of the women from an earlier generation married an Italian immigrant named Perelli and it was a corruption of this name that made its way west to California to become "Preli".  This means that Pete Preli and Houston Preli were distantly related to the (in)famous "Slaughterhouse Sid" Perelli (a baseball legend), his daughter Sharon (both from 'Arli&&' - "The Immortal"), Dominic Perelli ('General Hospital' - about 140 episodes) and an English widow named Linda Perelli ('Widows'.)  It is unclear as of this time if the Linda Perelli from the United States, whose life eerily echoed that of the English widow, would be related, of if she even belongs in Earth Prime-Time.

BCnU!