The West's Westness, part 3

Where is the West? It is in you and me and you, too, bucko.

Fresh (or not so fresh) from yet another sojourn into the wilderness of Self, the Great Plains of Novel…my answer can only be that while we goggle at yowling coyotes and saguaro cookie jars, sunsetted cowboys and pretty prairie lasses in way-too-tight jeans, the real West is that frontier between what you know as your self, and what you know as no-self. Call it despair. Call it the wilderness. Call it no man’s land, unmarked territory, death. Sorry to be so melodramatic, but, sweet cheeks, once you’ve even stepped a toe into that place and returned, things like taxes and getting into fights with siblings seems quaint, like gingerbread Victorian towns that need to prove themselves worthy of an Interstate rest area.

Westness can come in two basic shades: optimism and pessimism. When you are face-to-face with that hairy cliffhanger between self and no-self, what are you?

Cowboy Up; or, Cowboy Fact #21

To cowboy up means to get going. Get the job done. Get into gear. No matter what.

 Sundown Jim, by Ernest Haycox

Cover illustration by Jerry Allison

Pocket Books, 1958

from the collection of es

A good friend of ours has cancer–the late-stage, not-very-posterchild-like kind–and he and his wife have to cowboy up on a daily basis. I can’t always follow their lead (hence doing little but working and staring into space), but I’m posting today, because Cowboy Fact #22 is Cowboys, No Matter What, Finish What They Say They Will Finish. 

A cowboy may be getting dragged along with his foot in the stirrup, but the cattle will all be branded by nightfall. A town may be terrorized by evil Wall Street bankers, but the cowboy will save those frightened, confused townspeople. A cowboy might be caught in the middle of wilderness without horse, water, or a map or compass, but he/she will not only get out safely but also bring out several other people, similarly lost, and have found a lost gold mine to boot. 

Maybe there are things even a cowboy can’t conquer (a couple of the famous “Marlboro Men” died of lung cancer from smoking–click here for the lowdown on the cowboy-models dying of this low down disease). But a cowboy would gird his her loins (to borrow yet another knightly metaphor). A cowboy will make the most of every moment left on earth. 

Not all is gloom and doom about cowboying up. We recently met someone who had had multiple myeloma and had undergone the full battery of toxic therapies and bone marrow transplant. His Youtube posts about the grim process are nailbiting, heartrending, and ultimately, joyful (as in the post below). Jason gets my Cowboy Up trophy of the year (damn, now I have to go and make one….).

Depending on what happens tonight, I may give two more trophies: McCain is cowboying up to debate tonight in the midst of Wall Street’s self-detonated crisis. For lack of anyone in a leadership capacity, we might as well see two potentials in a showdown. Obama will get one if he eradicates every single wimpy modifier in his law-school professor vocabulary, such as seems, tends to, could be….

And I cowboyed up in my small way to post about what I didn’t want to post about. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cowboy Code

It’s difficult to be perfect, and when I was young that’s what I thought Roy Rogers and his singing cowboy comrades were. Too clean, too prissy, and too good. Now I love these Nudie cowboys, although personally I’ll take a grim James Stewart with a holster any day. Universal Pictures/Photofest

Now where was I? Oh yes, Roy Rogers and perfection. How could he not be as perfect as the Roy Rogers Club motto?

1. Be neat and clean. Wear Nudie. 

2. Be courteous and polite. Easy when you have a six-gun in your hand. 

3. Always obey your parents. OK, but what if they don’t want you to Go West Young Man? 

4. Protect the weak and help them. Take notice all you yahoos who think you’re cowboys. 

5. Be brave but never take chances. I would quibble with this one. Maybe he means don’t act with reckless abandon? How can one not take chances in life? Bravery is hot, though, always. 

6. Study hard and learn all you can. This moves beyond the obedient rows of fifties-style children into being curious, filled with wonder, ambitious, striving. Some people will be astrophysicists, some people become president, and some people clean houses. But you always learn. That’s my emotional moment of the day. You always learn! P.S. I have cleaned houses, and I’m not sure an astrophysicist can do it well….

7. Be kind to animals and take care of them. Especially your horse, but I’m glad he includes all animals. Does he mean cockroaches? is my question. 

8. Eat all your food and never waste any. If he were writing this now, he’s say “Eat smaller portions.”

9. Love God and go to Sunday school regularly. Ouch. Having gone to Sunday school regularly I know I can’t point at that institution as the reason I have a reverence for the world and sometimes, for people. Even for a reverence for a Something Else–although not a bearded man gazing down from on high. I’d point to my father, who was torn between becoming a Catholic priest or a scientist (guess you know what he chose), and who could imbue the sight of common dirt with wonder at the dynamic forces at work in its creation. 

Damn, I’m getting misty. I think these cowboy codes really work! I’ll try to be a better person, Roy, I promise! But I will not go to Sunday school!

Today the Cowboy Code is alive and well, even after the anniversary of Roy Roger’s Happy Trail into the sky. Noted in the Gilroy Dispatch, from Gilroy CA, a posse of “equestrians, cowboys, therapists, and five Santa Clara County students” recently rode into the mountains for a weekend of outdoor life. (full article here) It’s part of a longer program for students are socially or developmentally disabled, that stresses character development, wilderness skills, and–a worthy initiative–getting them away from the TV and computer into a rich interaction with life.  They have to do things that aren’t within their normal ken or comfort zone, the epitome of having to “cowboy up.” One of the students nicely sums up what they learn, the cowboy “morals” as he calls them: honesty, or being truthful; being respectful to your buddies; and taking care of your horse. That’s it, in a nutshell. 

And on the video you’ll see aother aspect of the Cowboy Code: Yes, damn it. It’s okay for the cowboy to cry. 

 

 

Still to Come: The Lone Ranger’s Creed.