So I go into my office yesterday morning, and there is a plain, brown paper-wrapped package on my desk. There is no note hinting at what’s inside or where it came from. With some reservation, I tear it open to find the book Pictorial History of the Wild West.
I smile and almost tear up. When I was 10 years old in Ames, Iowa, I received a copy of this book from my mom and dad. It was published in 1954 and packed with pictures of cowboys, outlaws and good guys who roamed the West shortly after the Civil War.
In today’s society, the book would probably be banned. It plays to the romantic, brutal and unruly West as described by Easterners who could not ride a horse or aim a six shooter. But I was 10 back then. Kids had developed a way of running that resembled a galloping horse, and we had wooden rifles and plastic guns stuck in holsters worn proudly, low around our waists.
Recent historians have much more accurately described this dangerous era in American history. But for an old gunslinger like me, I can close my eyes and picture the Earp brothers walking boldly toward the O.K. Corral.