What I've Learned from Westerns

Back in the '50s and '60s, one could watch several westerns every evening. After Dad filled his large mug with strong black coffee and grabbed the evening newspaper, he and I settled into our favorite living room chairs to watch Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Rifleman, Maverick, and Death Valley Days, just to name a few of our favorite “rope operas.”

While watching these old shows today, many seem rather simplified and even silly, but from them, I've learned quite a bit about the old West. For example, with few exceptions, the cowboy hero, although rugged and handsome, was not married. That's not to say that the women didn't swoon over him. However, most cowboys loved their horses far more than they could ever care about a gal.

I've never proven this, but I think there were two unions-a “good guys” union and a “bad guys” one. To be a good guy, you had to be the best shot in the land. You took an oath to never start a fight, but when push came to shove, you could certainly end it. Contrarily, to be in the union of bad guys you had to be a horrible shot. If your shooting accuracy increased, you either had to become a good guy or get into politics, where you could continue to be a bad guy.

We underestimate the technology of those long-ago days. Many of the good guys and even several bad guys had pistols that could fire fifteen to twenty shots without a reload! In addition, there was a way to make those bullets fly even faster toward the enemy: When firing the shot, you simply “threw” the bullet by thrusting out the shooting arm.

The hero's horse usually was much smarter and faster than any ridden by a bad guy. The good guy's horse could run into town to retrieve the sheriff, rise on its hind legs to attack the bad dude, and even count to twenty by using its front right hoof. That's pretty smart; these days many public school kids can't count that far!

Several Western heroes were singing cowboys. Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, for example, could hold their own in the music department. The greatest of the cowboys, John Wayne, evidently could not sing, but he didn't need to. When the Duke said he would kick your backside, you didn't need to hear it in musical verse to get the message. As for the bad guys, I don't remember any of them being capable of carrying a tune in a bucket.

Most (but not all) females in the Westerns were rather dainty, helpless little creatures. Often the bad guy tried to force a helpless lady into marriage so that he could take control of her farm, her gold, or her railroad stock. Without an altruistic cowboy hero around to rescue her, the poor gal soon would be penniless, sleeping in a corral and begging on the streets for food (Or worse yet, being forced to star in a Hallmark romance movie.)

Every good guy cowboy takes an oath to help the helpless. That is why the majority of them never settle down. Instead, they travel from town to town, looking for opportunities to save a damsel in distress, a wrongly convicted citizen, or a town from an Indian attack.

I've mentioned how handy a good guy had to be with a gun, but also he had to be talented with his fists. Even if the bad guy is twice the hero's size, the good guy is expected to beat his opponent to a pulp, and in the Westerns, that's what usually happens.

After doing his good deeds, the hero must “ride off into the sunset.” The best of the “sunset” riders was the Lone Ranger. For some reason, he could hang around town for a week, yet, when he and Tonto eventually rode away, somebody would ask: “Who was that masked man?” Just once I would have loved hearing some ornery old-timer say, “Son, that was Zorro!”

Tonto called the masked man “Kemosahbee.” This has been translated into “trusty scout” or “faithful friend,” but Tonto used the term most frequently when he was ticked off with his companion. Therefore, better translations may be “birdbrain” or “nincompoop.” But I digress.

Actually, although many white men swiped the Indians' land, the hero usually had a good relationship with Native Americans. He could no more mistreat them than he could a helpless female (In Westerns, “helpless” and “female” are redundant terms.) It was part of the code of the West, and every good guy followed it to the letter.

When I was a kid, “cowboy” seemed like a wonderful occupation. It still beats being a politician, but of course, that's an extremely low bar.