The Day of the Six-Shooter

From the desk of Dan Price... 

I loved the old Westerns. I sat in front of the television set in the early 1950s with my gun and holster set strapped to my 13-inch waist. Why I brought that up I do not know? I guess because I had that youthful look back then and now it is 2022 and I currently have trouble fastening a belt.

I Grew up loving the shoot-’em-up Westerns …my television heroes like Hopalong Cassidy, The Cisco Kid…and The Lone Ranger.

At the box office: The bigger-than-life movies like High Noon…Hondo…Man Without A Star…Shane — all of them would keep me in my seat to the very end.

Later in life, I graduated from Western Movies 101 to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly…Once Upon a Time in the West…Lonesome Dove…Unforgiven… all bigger-than-life Westerns seen through the eyes of an adult.

At the movies, as a young man, I would settle in my seat, juggle the box of popcorn and the soda in my lap, but keep my eyes focused on the large screen in front of me.

I would memorize the names that suddenly appeared on the screen: the headliners like John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Glen Ford, and Robert Taylor, but I wouldn’t stop there as I memorized the list of the supporting cast as well — actors like Walter Brennan, Noah Berry Jr., Chill Wills…and the ugly ones, too, like Jack Elam and Strother Martin.

Well, I could go on and name them all.

I recognized the cowgirls also: the ladies like Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar; Grace Kelly in High Noon; Dorothy Malone in the Last Sunset and Claire Trevor in The Man Without A Star…well the list goes on.

My mind was forever linked to action-packed Westerns like Hondo with John Wayne and Shane with Alan Ladd, along with the co-star Jack Palance, the meanest gunslinger ever.

As I reached adulthood the movies became more violent. Instead of a showdown in the street between two of the fastest men west of the Pecos River, the films would end in bloodshed from one end of town to the other. Many would die before the final credits rolled.

Television and movies progressed to even more violence. Somebody had to die a violent death. Many lives were lost. Only the good guy survived.

Detective TV shows followed and more violence found its way to the television screen. Clint Eastwood left Rawhide and became Dirty Harry. Charles Bronson put his cowboy gear away, put on a suit and tie, and cleaned up LA and San Francisco. Within an hour the streets were cleared of all the bad guys and life returned to normal. Whatever normal was after the viewer had witnessed nonstop killings for one hour and twenty minutes.

We, as a society has become used to it: death and destruction on the tube and on the screen. Yes, we have had wars and battles in foreign lands. Hollywood has documented all the action there as well — all the loss of life: From Here to Eternity.

What started out as an innocent gun and holster set on my hip at the age of six had progressed to an AR-15 in a classroom in Uvalde, Texas in the hands of a gunman.

At 77, my years roaming this beautiful land are numbered, but there are days I can still sit back and recall the beginning of the old Western movie, way back in 1956. Kirk Douglas is seen in the distance…sitting tall in the saddle…his horse galloping in stride, heading for Tombstone and the Town Too Tough To Die.

I awaited the next scene and the next.

I miss that. The movies back then were reigned in, so to speak. An innocent boy or girl, could sit through a matinee and go home knowing their larger-than-life heroes on the screen had saved the day. And in my case: it would be back to the ballpark or maybe a long bicycle ride through the neighborhood before supper.

I simply loved movies. Eventually, I put away my gun and holster set. I still searched for Clint Eastwood, not in Rawhide or Hang ‘Em High, but in beautiful movies like Million Dollar Baby and The Bridges of Madison County.

I had become a romantic…without my gun and holster set.

I miss the wide open spaces of the grasslands, the breeze along the prairie, the clear blue sky above, and the sound of a Frankie Lane song echoing in the background. I miss the first days of technicolor, the names of my favorite cowboys splattered in red across the screen.

Life was so simple then.

Where did it all go wrong?