I have some bad news.

The Ponderosa Ranch is closing. Take a minute to collect yourself.

The Ponderosa Ranch, of course, is the massive stake of land owned by the Cartwright family in the 1960s television program "Bonanza."

There is a real Ponderosa Ranch, on the shore of Lake Tahoe, where several scenes for the show were filmed. For the past 37 years, it has sat on the outskirts of Incline Village, Nev., happily collecting the money of tourists -- offering them a chance to stroll through a mock Old West town, pan for gold, watch a comedy gunfight show, and get their picture taken wearing Old West clothing.

It's nothing special, really. Except for the fact that it is where I met my wife.

I was a part-time gunfighter. It was my job to rob the hayride wagons each morning as they trudged their way up to a scenic area for breakfast. I would charge from an outhouse, firing wildly into the air and screaming, steal a bag of money from the driver and get shot in the back for my efforts.

I did this dozens of times each morning and became quite skilled at doing it wrong. I would occasionally trip and fall flat on my face when coming from the outhouse. I managed to shoot myself in the stomach, arm and leg (there was no bullet, of course, but the hot gunpowder from a blank does not feel good). And I almost always landed on a sharp rock or my gun when the driver shot me.

But I did it for the free breakfast I would be allowed to help myself to at the end of the morning. And because I wasn't very good at anything else.

I had a bad habit of inaccurate pouring when I tried to tend bar in the saloon. I was equally inefficient about remembering to actually put any gold in the "panning for gold" area. I was allergic to the smoke from the Hoss Burgers. I drove the vehicles too hard. I goofed around too much in the Old West photo area. I couldn't even mend a fence.

I really should have been fired.

But I think that the ranch manager, David Geddes, took a sort of pleasure in watching me fail. That would certainly explain why he let me attempt to woo Rachel on company time.

Rachel gave tours of the ranch house (she can tell you anything and everything about the Cartwrights and can sing the theme song from memory) and occasionally took tickets at the front gate. She was one of David's favorite employees, having returned to the ranch three summers in a row.

He laughed when I suggested that I be allowed to stand at the gate, twirling my gun (I am actually pretty good at this) and greeting visitors, whilst Rachel took the tickets. He saw right through my scheme.

"You haven't got a chance," he said in his New Zealander accent.

But he let me do it, nonetheless. He probably couldn't wait to see me go down in flames -- plenty of other men had tried to work their magic on the tall, amber-haired girl from Utah and all of them had been eviscerated by her.

Admittedly, I didn't start strong. Part of it was my approach, I think. As I twirled my six-shooter I would tell Rachel a bunch of lame jokes: "What's brown and sticky? A stick."

LIFE FILES Where Did You Meet Your Spouse? E-mail our advice columnists Life Files Archive

She took about as much interest in me as one does toward a dead squirrel. But I was relentless. I exhausted my store of bad jokes, scheduled my lunches to coincide with hers, weaseled my way into the gunfight shows in which she took part (she got to kick me in the crotch), and spent every moment I could in her presence.

To David's surprise (and that of just about everyone else), Rachel and I were married the next summer.

We spent the first year of our marriage living in Reno, Nev., just down the mountain from the Ponderosa Ranch, and would occasionally drop by to say hello and score a free breakfast.

Now it's all closing down. Rachel and I won't be able to get out there for one final goodbye. But we'll probably pull out our Old West photos (she looks good in that saloon girl outfit) and remember it warmly.

In honor of the Ponderosa Ranch, my friends, Bryce and Eric, and I sang our own version of the "Bonanza" theme song. You can listen to it by clicking here. I will warn you, however, that if there had been a singing role at the Ponderosa Ranch that would have been another job I wasn't any good at.

Your last day to visit the ranch will be Sept. 26.

Chris Cope is married, with no children. His column appears every other Tuesday.