In Death Westerns Hero Clint Walker Provides Source of Reflection on American Heritage

It wouldn’t surprise me if you missed his obituary, but Clint Walker died last Monday. He was 90 (https://nyti.ms/2LoTEY2).

Walker held a special place in the Forseter household from the mid-1950s to early-1960s. Tall, rugged, Adonis-shaped with a laconic, baritone voice, Walker portrayed Cheyenne Bodie in the ABC-TV series Cheyenne that aired Sunday nights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyenne_(TV_series).

It was among my mother’s favorite shows, not the least reason being her pleasure at ogling Walker, especially when he took off his shirt. In the small of his back Cheyenne had a scar, a divot shaped like an arrowhead.  (She also favored William Hopper who played private detective Paul Drake on the CBS-TV series Perry Mason. Hopper never took his shirt off). 

Perhaps it was a reflection of the era, but westerns made up a considerable volume of the television fare enjoyed by our family more than six decades ago. A quick list of the prime time oaters we watched included Maverick (we preferred the episodes featuring James Garner as Bret Maverick over those with Jack Kelly (Bart) or Roger Moore (Beau), The Rebel, Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman and Wagon Train. I never knew why, but we mostly resisted tuning into Sugarfoot, Bonanza, and Rawhide, the series that launched Clint Eastwood’s career. 

My father was a big fan of westerns. There were, of course, westerns targeted at children that I watched without him: Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, Broken Arrow, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickok, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, Broken Arrow, Sky King (a “modern” western—the hero piloted a twin-engine Cessna instead of riding a horse around Arizona territory), and, my personal favorite, The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin, because its main human character was a boy just a few years my elder. 

I cannot remember any episode but one, wherein the young orphan Rusty is saved from a deadly buffalo stampede by the appearance on a hill of a mystical white buffalo that caused the herd to stop its charge, but I often called out, “Yo, Rinny,” as Rusty did at least once each show to get his faithful German shepherd dog to spring into action to save the day (to be honest, I always said “Yo, Rinty,” but in researching this blog I listened to part of the first episode and heard Rusty say, “Rinny.” Ah, well, so my memory is not infallible).

These westerns were small morality plays. Aside from life lessons, the mini horse operas imparted a bit of historical context to the saga of America. Don’t dwell on their accuracy. They were no more true to facts than most Hollywood biopics or history-based films. 

Yet, they provided background to our collective national experience, with one glaring omission—rarely, if at all, did they portray the lives and contributions of Black Americans, or those of Mexican and Asian heritage, in exploring, taming and settling the Old West, unless they were shown in servile positions (Hey Boy in Have Gun Will Travel is an example). Their more meaningful achievements were not part of small screen fare (http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4807). 

Star Trek, Star Wars and their ilk, along with superhero movies that defy credulity, have replaced westerns as the genres beloved by juveniles. They’re OK, if you like computer aided graphics, but I wonder how much the younger generation has lost identification with the American experience. Has the Millennium Falcon’s speedy Kessel run replaced the cumbersome Conestoga wagon trudge along the Oregon Trail as the touchstone for intrepid treks? 

Westerns were not alone in glossing over the full reality of our multi-cultural history. Textbooks I used in elementary and high school neglected non white contributors. I cannot say what today’s textbooks include, but if the behavior of our president and many of his supporters is any indication, I would guess we still do not count Native Americans, African Americans, Mexicans, Chinese and numerous other immigrant nationalities among the heroes and shapers of America. 

Politics and Some Old Fashioned Values

Michele Bachmann’s politics might not be my cup of tea, but at least she seems to have the credentials of someone who has served the public for many years. She also appears to be no slouch when it comes to intellect, though I would question some of her conclusions.

What I don’t understand, however, is why politicians like her always insist they are not politicians? More curiously, why do so many voters swallow their swill?

The other day, when announcing her candidacy during an Iowa stopover, Bachmann asserted, “People are tired of politicians.” Okay, if that’s the case, why is she running? She is a professional politician. Anyone who is a three-term congresswoman is a professional politician. How can anyone who knows her think she is not a politician?

Michael Bloomberg was not a politician when he first ran for mayor of New York City. Now in his third term, Mayor Mike is definitely a politician. Rand Paul was not a politician when he ran for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky last year. If he seeks re-election in 2016, or heaven help us higher office, he no longer should be able to claim the mantle of an outsider.

Bachmann appears to be as scripted as they come. She’s chock full of sound bites, an impressive quality in this era of fly-by news coverage and casual listening by the electorate. That’s why it was all the more humorous when she misspoke at her Waterloo, Iowa, campaign launch by saying both she and John Wayne hailed from that small Iowa town. In case you haven’t heard, she got the wrong John Wayne mixed up with the conservative, Hollywood icon. John Wayne the actor was from a different Iowa community, Winterset. John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer, was from home town of Waterloo. Perhaps she'll turn her faux pas into a clever retort by saying she will serially kill government, program by program.

Oh well, in any campaign there are bound to be gaffes, like when Sarah Palin couldn’t remember the name of any newspapers she read, or lauded her foreign affairs expertise because she could see Russia from her porch.

Palin is the protagonist of a new documentary premiered Tuesday in Iowa designed to right the wrongs that have besmirched her political career. The Undefeated is said to portray her two and a half years as governor as among the most fulfilling of any full-term chief executive of Alaska. I haven’t seen the film, which Palin did not commission. But you have to wonder why the documentarian chose the name The Undefeated. Palin, did, after all, lose her last election in 2008.

According to Human Events, a conservative Web site, filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon “said he titled the film The Undefeated in part because Palin fights for 'the values that she stands for and represents -- the American spirit that is found on the frontier -- and those values cannot be defeated.’”

I’ve seen lots of Westerns in my time, many starring John Wayne. While they deified individual accomplishment, self-reliance and a refusal to give in, they also contained some themes that were decidedly un-Republican: bankers often were shady characters; land- and cattle barons along with railroad tycoons were selfish aggrandizers, willing to pay hired guns to do their dirty work; to get ahead, homesteaders and townspeople often had to band together in a sort of collective socialism; prostitution was an accepted, at least tolerated, social norm; a good lawman was one who enforced gun control over the citizenry. No one declared their Second Amendment rights when Marshal Dillon or Wyatt Earp demanded they put down their side arms.