“Forgive Me, Pastor, But My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys…”

“I grew up a-dreamin’ of bein’ a cowboy
And lovin’ the cowboy ways
Pursuin’ the life of my high ridin’ heroes
I burned up my childhood days…”

                                                   — Sharon Vaughn

Willie Nelson sang it in The Electric Cowboy.  Sharon Vaughn wrote the song.  And it speaks to me of the days when my brothers and I, along with neighborhood kids, became good guy cowboys and bad guy rustlers and outlaws. We were six or ten years old, all with hats, cap guns and holster belts.  Our parents approved of our outside activities and the good guys always beat the bad guys.  We were spending time away from the TV, but we always became the heroes we saw on TV and in the movies.

I still watch Gene Autry, Roy Roger, and Tex Ritter (the singing cowboy actor and father of John Ritter from Three’s Company and 8 Simple Rules).  I also listen to old programs from the classic days of radio (on satellite radio) like Hopalong Cassidy, Gunsmoke (far superior to the TV version), and The Cisco Kid.  Yes, those programs were from a very different time.  Good guys were good guys.  Bad guys were bad guys.  There were few nuances. In the shows intended for children, the good guys would shoot the guns out of the hands of the bad guys.  There was no blood.

Many guys who grew up between the 1920’s through the 1970’s know what I’m talking about.  No, it wasn’t a girl thing, and if you were a girl and wanted to play with us, we wouldn’t let you.  Sorry, but that’s how it was.

I’m also aware that not everyone was so fortunate as to be able to enjoy such an upbringing.  While I’m sure that there was much crossover in other classes and cultures, the cowboy phenomenon was largely a white middle-class thing, and certainly almost all male.

Sorry, if I’ve bored you, because I’m sure much of my audience knows all of this.

But it brings me forward into the 21^st Century, when the idea that you might buy your six-year-old a toy gun marks you as an unfit parent and someone who has little regard for life and safety.

One Sunday morning, my wife and I found ourselves in church, which is typical for a Sunday morning.  Our minister that Sunday morning was a stand-in, but he often officiates when the regular minister isn’t available.  Time after time, in his sermon he has made disparaging remarks about this country, our military, our government and those who believe in traditional values.  This time was the last straw, and the reason that I will never attend church again if he is present.

He is a black minister and grew up in the inner city, but nowhere near Chicago.  Apparently, in his own eyes, this made him an expert on black-on-black violence in Chicago.  I must admit, however, that he is a great orator with immense persuasive power.

“Someone asked me the other day, why we don’t do something to stop black people from killing black people in Chicago,” he said, fire in his eyes.  “This man told me that something has to be done to stop the culture of killing, the total disregard for human life. We have to take extreme measures, this man told me.”

The congregation looked on, holding on to every word.

“Let me tell you what I told him,” the pastor said.  “I told him that we’ve already taken extreme measures.  We’ve taken extreme measures to teach all these young black men all they know about shooting other people, about being callous about human life.  We’ve taught them it’s fine to pull out a gun and laugh as you kill the man next to you. That’s what we’ve taught them.  And this didn’t start just yesterday.  Oh, no, it started a long time ago.  It started with Roy Rogers, John Wayne, and Gene Autry: men who taught us that having a gun makes you right!”

He continued.  “You may not remember it, but back in the day, you could take a nickel and spend a whole day in a movie theater watching people kill each other with guns.  That’s the society WE created.  So don’t get on your high horse and tell me about the good old days when Hopalong Cassidy was righteous with his blazing six guns.  Instead, think about these young black men in Chicago who don’t know anything better because we taught them it was the right thing to do.  It’s all on us.  It’s not on them!

I was nauseated and sickened.  But some of the congregation applauded.

With only a few words, the pastor had twisted the truth beyond recognition.  My cowboy heroes who reluctantly used weapons only as a last resort were transformed into uncaring killers.  The values they upheld:  truth, honor, justice, compassion, and perseverance, no longer meant anything.

What amazed me most was that at the end of the sermon, the pastor offered no solution to the problem of blacks killing blacks in Chicago.  There was only blame.  And the blame fell on the “good guys” I had grown up with.

I think that most of my audience knows that few, if any, of those young black men who perpetrate violence on each other in Chicago know anything about Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, or the Cisco Kid.  It’s a shame because if they had been brought up with Dale and Roy and Trigger, along with the values they represent, their lives might be far better and there would be fewer people killing each other on the streets of Chicago.

Here’s to my heroes, who have always been cowboys!

 

— Mr. Evil