Remember Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers?

C’mon, you know you raced home from school so you could watch Roy and his pals rescue Dale Evans and her pals. You loved Trigger, you loved the six-shooter action, and you even loved it when Roy sang. Because sure as anything, there’d be some yodeling.

And that’s how Gordon Hoffman learned to yodel.

“I was 10 years old, living in Tomah, when the businessmen decided to put on an amateur talent show,” said Hoffman, now 88. Darned if his dad didn’t put him on stage to show off his boy’s cowboy yodeling.

Seventy-eight years later, Hoffman was on stage again, this time at Germanfest in Milwaukee last weekend, and darned if his dad wouldn’t have been proud, because Hoffman yodeled his way to the first-place medal.

Not that many people actually have heard him, Hoffman said, because his favorite place to yodel is in his car or truck. He’ll pop in a CD by his favorite German band, Alpensterne, and yodel along to songs such as “Edelweiss” and his favorite, “Mei Vater is a Appenzeller.”

And that’s what he did this weekend for the long drive from Onalaska to Milwaukee, where he went to see Alpensterne perform. He didn’t know he’d be yodeling in a place where 40,000 people were gathered, but when they put together a last-minute yodel-off, up he got from his seat in the audience and proceeded to take first place with a little “Ein Prosit” yodel and then something from “Mei Vater is a Appenzeller.”

For the yodel-impaired among us, Hoffman wants everyone to know German yodeling is not the same as cowboy yodeling.

“Cowboy yodeling is softer. There’s less warbling in your throat.”

Nothing soft about Hoffman’s yodeling now. Heck, he could probably yodel 5 miles across a coulee to a pal on a neighboring ridge top, just like they do in Switzerland when they don’t want to bother with the telephone.

Hoffman has made it his mission to follow Alpensterne around wherever they perform, whether it’s Milwaukee, St. Paul or New Ulm, Minn., yodeling all the way. And if you’re reading this, Oktoberfest officials, he sure would like to see them perform at Oktoberfest in La Crosse.

Heck, he might even agree to take his yodel out of the truck and onto the stage if his musical pals ever come to town.