My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN COWBOYS

In my old age with extra time on my hands, besides taking walks and engaging in church activities, I sometimes read books, assemble puzzle pieces, or play my organ. When it comes to watching television, I frequently have to turn off the news to keep from becoming too angry, bitter, frustrated and feeling helpless to do anything about it beyond prayer.

Other than watching the Chiefs and Cowboys during football season, I set the recorder forOak Island and Skinwalker Ranch whichever is in season on the History channel. Not so much now, but I have watched old western movies, mostly starring John Wayne, Joel McCrae, Randolph Scott, and I wouldn’t pass up a Sam Elliot movie; but right now I’m just interested in a couple of the western series that graced television during the 1960’s and 1970’s. There were some good ones. Rawhide, with its theme song written by Russian composer Dimitri Tiomkin and sung by Frankie Lane, introduced us to Clint Eastwood. Bonanza, one of the first to be broadcast in color, gave us fictional characters including Little Joe and Hoss. Gunsmoke gave us Marshall Dillon, Chester, Miss Kitty and Doc.

But right now I just watch The Virginian (that gave us the characters The Virginian and Trampas), and Laramie. I liked Laramie’s family model and music, until they started “improving” it and destroyed its value for me. But I like Robert Fuller’s role as Jess Harper. Last I knew he is the only actor of these western heroes still alive, in his 90s and living on his horse farm. The first year musician Hoagy Carmichael was part of the family, then Spring Byington.

Maybe I like westerns because I associate them with being young when I first saw them. They are a way of returning to the past and shutting out some of the things I don’t like about today’s world and today’s TV -- an escape to a time when real flesh and blood American heroes fought hard to establish and protect our rule of law and stood for “truth, justice and the American Way.” A time when Americans were self-made and practical and believed in freedom.

I guess I like them because I understand them. The plots are not complicated, and they don’t move too fast for me. Today’s audiences would be bored with just watching a horse being ridden through a vista for as long as those scenes were in westerns. Quick action is expected today. Virtue is often in short supply in today’s films, as movies both reflect and lead changes in societal values. Humor has changed. I think you have to be young to appreciate much of today’s TV. It’s good that some stations repeat old programming. (If Bewitched was on, I’d be watching that! I loved Elizabeth Montgomery!)

I like it that the good guys always won in the old westerns. Good always overcame evil. Of course, that wasn’t true in real life then; and it certainly isn’t true today. But the movie heroes always did the right thing. They portrayed strong, virtuous men and women, upholding what is right -- good role models, that is until the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns appeared in the late 1960’s, perhaps signaling the beginning of a change in values. But I do admire Clint Eastwood.

Hollywood westerns probably shaped our only-partially-true concept of what life was really like during the settlement of the frontier in the 1800’s. Life was hard and many died very young. It was very tough on women. But they were free and lived close to nature. I don’t know how many men really did carry a gun back then, but settlement was usually ahead of the establishment of the rule of law.

I watch the series Laramie because I like Robert Fuller’s role as Jess Harper (Fuller is still living at age 90 on his horse ranch). Hoagy Carmichael in early episodes and Spring Byington later, plus always a youngster, gave Laramie a family feel with some humor; and the series had a really good theme song (not written by Hoagy) until they “improved” it with something unmemorable and less family like.

I would watch some episodes of Wild, Wild West if they were available because I liked Ross Martin as the character Artemus Gordon. I also occasionally watch Maverick, just for the laughs, plus I like James Garner.

But for me, The Virginian is the classic. Why is The Virginian my favorite? First, some background: The Virginian television series, which ran from 1962 to 1971, is based on the 1902 book, The Virginian, by Owen Wister. Some believe The Administratrix by Emma Ghen Curtis (1889) was the first non-pulp, more literary book about the cowboy in the American West; but most give that honor to Wister’s The Virginian. The novel was adapted as a stage production 1904 – 1905, ushering in a phase of romanticizing the American cowboy which lasted at least into the early 1970’s. Movies based on the book were released in 1914, 1923, 1929, 1946 and 2014 with actors Dustin Farnum, Kenneth Harlan, Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea and Trace Adkins, the first of these directed by Cecil B. DeMille. There was also a made-for-television movie in 2000 starring Bill Pullman. The Virginian was also done in comic books, but I didn’t know that in the 1940’s when I was a youngster waiting impatiently for the mailman to bring me the latest comic issues.

Just after The Virginian's last season Men from Shilo aired. It added added Lee Majors to the cast and made Trampas an enemy, like in the original book. It only lasted that one season. Western series were exiting television programing.

The Virginian also stands out to me because, despite the violence in westerns, more than any other western of the time, it consistently taught virtues and morals. In my opinion, they had better writers than most westerns with many episodes embracing some social issue like prejudice, mental illness, the importance of law and order, taking care of the land, etc. -- many of the same issues we face today, just with a different setting.

Their race problem was with the Indians. One episode showed not only the Indians being relocated and then moved again at the whim of the government despite promises, but also how very hard it was for Indians to assimilate themselves into the white culture that was swallowing theirs and still maintain their heritage and Indian identity and dignity and even acceptance back into the tribe after attending a white school. Another episode was built around the introduction of parole and teaching prisoners a trade to prepare them for release, facing prejudice and fear from the public. One showed how dirty politics can be. Another ended tragically when the efforts of a headstrong father determined to protect his son’s future instead caused his son’s death. And a quote from another episode: “Ever since Cain slew Abel, there has been war; the same war with brief interludes of peace when they grew weary . . . . Will the day ever come when it will not be necessary for a man to be dead to find peace?”

But usually the episodes end on a positive note. Comedy came naturally into many scenes, with an occasional entire episode dedicated to comedy. I get quite a few laughs watching these reruns. Trampas brings most of them.

The scenery and acting were superb. Life near Medicine Bow, Wyoming Territory, on Shilo Ranch in the 1880’s and the characters that lived there seem very real. The Virginian never had another name other than sometimes being addressed as “Foreman” or “Ramrod.” He was strong of body, character and wisdom, a tough foreman but also gentle and caring. If you google the word “Trampas,” you’ll find it leads you straight to that loveable character on The Virginian. Other regular cast members came and went over the years; but The Virginian and Trampas were always played by James Drury and Doug McClure. In the book The Virginian and Trampas were enemies, but they were best of friends in the series that brought those characters to life, like old friends who now come for a short visit. I don’t know what either of these actors were like in real life; but I loved the characters they gave life to. And Percy Faith’s music was pretty darned good, too.

Generally every episode included guest appearances. I was particularly interested in the re-run that introduced a new young actor named Harrison Ford. I liked seeing Kurt Russell as a child in at least two episodes. Mel Torme both acted in and wrote one episode. Johnny Whitaker of Family Affair (the one who came to Arrow Rock in my home Missouri county to film the Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn movie) portrayed a runaway from an orphanage where the boys were beaten and not fed properly. Lots of famous actors and actresses were guests: Yvonne DeCarlo, James Brolin (Josh Brolin’s dad), Joan Crawford, James Whitmore, William Shatner, Dennis Weaver, Charles Bronson, Robert Fuller, Andrew Prine -- you name the stars of my youth -- many, many of them appeared in one episode or another of The Virginian – they were my contemporaries. I know very few of Hollywood’s younger stars now.

I also still like it because of the horses. Ever since my dad first lifted me onto the back of a strawberry roan workhorse when I was a toddler, and despite lasting body aches caused by them over the years, I have never lost my love for horses. I’m sure Trigger was the reason I loved the (now hoaky) Roy Rogers serials at the movies when I was a kid. I was thrilled to watch that golden palomino! The Virginian has always been broadcast in color, which shows the horses so much better than black and white. When I watch The Virginian, I watch the horses carefully: I see and appreciate their beauty -- their color, confirmation, gait, behavior and how well trained they were. Unless it was part of the story line, they never ran off when the actor forgot to tie them, or left a rein dragging. Of course, we didn’t see the crew member immediately stepping in to manage the horses and save those reins from being stepped on and broken. I notice what type of bits and tack the horses wore and how the men treated their mounts, both good and bad, how they handled the reins. I notice when James Drury touches his horse’s flanks as he walks behind it (always a good idea) or gives it a pat on the neck. Doug McClure did, too. Over the years, those actors became superb horse handlers and riders. In a bucking scene, I watch for when the camera cuts away so the bucking strap can be removed so the rider can then show how he has tamed the horse.

I also notice when the riders are on different horses. The Virginian wasn’t always riding the same near-white appaloosa. He used at least 3 and probably more over the course of the series with frequent changes within an episode. In one episode The Virginian started up the hill on one horse and in the very next frame, still coming up the same hill, he was on a different one. I’ve noticed other back-to-back scenes where the spots on his horse reposition themselves, darken or disappear and reappear signaling a change of horses; once mane color even changed from light to black. They really blew it in one episode when the uncharacteristic black horse The Virginian was riding turned bay as soon as the bad guys started chasing him. While Trampas was traveling between two towns he was shown riding a sorrel; but when he arrived in that town he was back on his trusted buckskin, “Buck.” He rode at least three different buckskins, with different tack depending on the horse--one used a hackamore instead of a bit. The character Jim Horn (Tim Mathewson) left Canada in a hurry on a bay but in later scenes returned home to Shilo on his blaze-faced chestnut. Clu Galager (as Emmett Ryker) rode several different sorrels of varying shades of color and mane whiteness. We’re not supposed to notice things like that. I have fun with it. The film crew accumulated a library of film clips to use without having to film them again. I’ve noticed the same clip of Trampas on a cutting horse cutting out the same steer by the same stream in at least three episodes. And I’ve seen the same clip of wild horses running down a hill, with the same horse falling at the same location on the hill every time! And back to Laramie for a minute, I loved that John Smith became the rider of a very nice, very lovely John Wayne horse.

That’s all okay with me – for the most part, it was artfully done and fun for me to notice. It would have been fun to watch the filming. I never noticed stunt doubles for The Virginian or Trampas, though there probably were some for the roughest scenes. I imagine the light-colored horse that suddenly had a black mane, plus the camera panning out, were clues that The Virginian’s double was going to take the tumble from that horse down a long steep hill. I would have loved to have seen Hollywood herds of horses, probably checked out as we do books from a library, to whatever western being filmed that needed them, and some reserved. I would have liked to have seen the movie sets of Medicine Bow and of the Shilo Ranch house. And I wonder how they filmed the burning and reconstruction of that house in one episode. Most of The Virginian was filmed not in Wyoming but in various locations in California. ( I just learned that Medicine Bow, Wyoming, where the series was set, is a real town that still exists, with a population of @ 300. It came into existence in 1869 when the railroad came through, is named after the nearby Medicine Bow River, was once plagued by Butch Cassiday and his Wilcox train robbery, and has been a center for dinosaur skeleton discoveries. It still has an historic building called The Virginian Hotel and is on or near I-80.)

I probably also like The Virginian because in some way, it reminds me of Fred and farm life and being outdoors in nature. Fred was my real life “cowboy.” He didn’t like horses. That he tolerated them was testament to his love for me. But he was a strong man, able to do most anything, and dedicated to trying to do what was right. And more than one person remarked that he looked like Robert Duvall. (But Fred was certainly a much better looking young man than Robert Duvall was! Think of Boo in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” They looked similar only as they aged.)

And now Fred and most of the actors who played the roles, are gone. But along with those legendary movie heroes – Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd), the Lone Ranger (Clayton Moore on television), John Wayne, Joel McCray, Randolph Scott (with his gorgeous chestnut) the fictional characters The Virginian and Trampas live on in my memories.

But in a class all his own, my real life hero, Fred!

“MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN COWBOYS!”

Postscript: In 1961 science fiction writer Robert A Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land introduced a new word to the English language: “grok.” (pronounced with a long “o”.) To grok something means to fully and completely analyze and understand it. Now the word “grok” has been picked up by Elon Musk as the name of his AI chatbot.

Now that I’ve “groked” The Virginian, through all of its episodes, it’s time to move on to something else. Probably not westerns! You Tube offers great opportunities for mind enrichment!