In the beginning was man. And man was on the run. He was either running after food, or running from being food. He didn’t have time for much else.
Then man figured out how to plant food. Suddenly, man had lots of time. So, he started to think: What’s the meaning of life? What happens if I light this and put it in my mouth? And what’s the deal with Nature vs. Nurture: Is a man who he is by DNA or by how he’s raised? And so the Freudian tug-a-war began.
Here’s what I mean. You might not know this about me, but a number of my formative years were spent over the border. No, not the one with the wall...the other one; Kansas. Specifically, I lived in Coffeyville.
Now, if Coffeyville had a hey-day, it had well passed before we moved there. In fact, the town’s most significant claim to fame dated back to 1892 when, in a supreme act of confidence, the Dalton Gang attempted to free two banks of all their deposits at the same time. The townspeople had other ideas. They shot the brothers dead in the street. Even now if you turn a corner on main street, you’ll find some gruesome manikins behind bars and plexiglass in a re-creation of the gang’s final state. Poor upkeep and prairie weather have left the manikins chipped and dusty, but that only manages to make them even more creepy.
So, it may be no surprise that while we were living there, we fell
in with some cowboy folks. I mean bronco ridin’, cow herdin’, truck drivin’, “g” droppin’ cowboys. The real thing. Before I knew it, I was taking in a pretty steady diet of Willie, Waylon and the boys. I was singing about a field with Lucille and Luckenbach, Texas and a woman named Elvira . And I was taking it all in from the bench seat of a pickup truck with a dog named “dog.”
Suddenly, we got the call to move to the bustling metropolis of the Ville. I was heartbroken...at first. Then it was like waking from a dream. I looked at myself in our new downtown apartment (with my 70’s hair lightly feathered and my shirt a bit too tight) and all at once proclaimed “I know it’s only Rock n Roll, but I like it!” I knew that’s who I was. Even so, I still can’t help but wonder - if I had stayed in Coffeyville, would I be wearing Wranglers today? Or would my northern DNA have eventually risen up like a Yankee in remission? It’s hard to say.
It seems like being a cowboy often means longing for the days of the “Wild West.” The challenge is, most of our images of the Wild West really come from Hollywood. So you have to decide which image to go with. Do you go with the Clint Eastwood/John Wayne Hollywood where you spit a lot, bathe little and shoot when necessary (which it turns out is always)? Or do you go by the musical side of Hollywood like Annie Get Your Gun or Seven Brides or our regional favorite - Oklahoma. In that case, Cowboys were dapper-do-gooders who’d rather sashay than shoot (and usually did).
I personally believe “the farmer and the cowman should be friends.” Let’s combine the two Hollywood images. How endearing would it be if Yul Brynner led the Magnificent Seven out in a chorus line to face the banditos? Or if we let Rooster Cogburn lament in song: “No one knows what it’s like to be the bad man, to be the sad man, with one good eye?” See, there’s room for high kicking and killing.
From the beginning it’s always been easy to romanticize the Wild West. And I get it. You could live off the grid in the Wild West because, well - there was no grid. That’s where things fall apart for me. Not because of the inter-webs. I think I could make it without social media. It’s all the other modern conveniences that I would miss.
For instance (and I know this says a lot about me) I still get excited each week I take all the household trash we’ve collected over seven days, throw it in a container, roll it out to the street and a giant truck with a magic arm comes and takes it all away. That’s brilliant.
I love it that when I’m thirsty I don’t have to roll up my jeans and whistle like Opie on the way to the Caney. I just press a button on our fridge and Voila`!....ice cold water like a Coors commercial comes pouring out.
I love it, that when I “have to do my business” instead of going to a spider-hut called an outhouse or digging a hole in the backyard, I just go into a small room and pull a lever and “the bad stuff” leaves my house. Hopefully never to be seen again.
I love it that when it gets to be triple digit heat outside, I walk over to a small box on my wall and suddenly cold air fills my house. Because let’s be honest, the alternative is less clothing and there’s only so naked most of us should get.
All these wonderful things would be missing in the “Wild West.” And let’s face it, even the people living in the Wild West didn’t want to stay there. That’s why we invented all these “modern conveniences” like penicillin and butt warmers in cars.
To me the Wild West is fun to visit (like in two hour chunks with Clint Eastwood to protect me), but I don’t wanna live there. And before you object, just ask yourself how well you did the last time the power went out at your house. I’ve seen a lot of you in dark times. It takes about 15 minutes till you start making a short list of who to eat first. That’s not a very nurturing thing to do, even if it is natural.
So even though there’s plenty of this modern world I could do without, I’m not about to move back to the Little House on the Prairie. I’ve got nothing against real men (and women). I’m not afraid to get dirty and I do like dogs (especially in trucks). I just also like electricity, indoor plumbing and rock n roll. But maybe that’s just my DNA. •
