COWBOYS

MEMORY LANE-
COWBOYS
BY R. AUBREY LA FOY
A favorite game that we played when I was a kid was “Cowboys.” If we were really lucky we might even have a toy six-shooter revolver and holster to really enhance the game. A cowboy’s ten-gallon hat was Dad’s old dress up hat and a badge made you a sheriff. Broomsticks or even long pieces of lumber became your faithful steed and a slap on the leg and occasional chucking sound added more reality and a few giddyups now and then helped to create the allusion, at least to ourselves. Clothes line ropes made for great lassos and more than one family dog or cat found themselves substitution for calves and cattle. The imagination of young lads in the 1930s supported by the cowboy movies we attended.
If you grew up in those days you enjoyed the gunplay in those cowboy movies. Our favorites were Tom Mix, Wm. S. Hart, Broncho Billy Anderson, Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard, Hopilong Cassidy and Harry Carey. Some of the early cowboy actors who later became movie stars were Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Walter Huston and Randolph Scott.
In the mid 1930s the movies introduced a new western character known as the singing cowboy. I can still remember that when they first appeared on the screens of having great and heated discussions with each other as to whether or not they were “true” cowboys. Three of the best known were Gene Autry, Tex Ritter and Roy Rogers. Those singing cowboys even had girl friends and to a lad of seven or eight that didn’t seem right so that was a strike against those “singing cowboys”.
I firmly believe that because we were addicted to following those early cowboy movies we developed a very sophisticated view of good guys versus bad guys. It was easy to tell the difference as good guys wore white hats and bad guy wore black hats. Good guys rode white horses and who can forget Roy Rogers’s horse Trigger? The Lone Ranger had a great horse that could do tricks and saved the Lone Ranger and Tonto many times. We lads didn’t have any horses but if we really used our imagination that was no problem. Where did we get all that energy chasing each other through the yards, around the houses and hiding in the bushes? Ah! Those were the days when life was so simple.
As we grew older but still loved cowboy movies we expanded and started to read about them. The school and public libraries had all sorts of great adventure books about the “wild and wooly west.” The most popular author was Zane Grey. I can still remember reading “Wanderer of the Wasteland.” It was the first “adult” book that I read from cover to cover. The story was so exciting it was impossible to set the book down because it was so thrilling to visualize traveling in those remote parts of the west. There was no end to Zane Grey’s books as he wrote over 80. Some of the others were Riders of the Purple Sage, The Vanishing American, Wilderness Trek, Desert Heritage, The Border Legion, Nevada, The Dude Ranger, The Buffalo Hunter, Stairs of Sand, Wildfire, The Last Man, Western Union, West of the Pecos and The Savage Kingdom. He also wrote a boy’s book The Short Stop, which sold over 27 million copies. Critics dismissed his work as escapist and sentimental and rated them as one step above the “dime novels. His books were about the western cowboy, Indians, rustlers and gunfighters. He used the background of deserts, mountains and plains for the settings of his stories. Regardless of what the “critics” said about his books millions of people loved to read his books.
Several days ago I was at a garage sale and they had old copies of “Arizona Highways” Magazines for sale at 10 cents each. The price was right so I purchased a dollars worth. The pictures in those magazines are spectacular, there are articles, humor and stories that really catch your eye and attention.
The October 1973 issue had an article about Zane Grey. Mr. Grey was born in Ohio in 1875 and died in 1939. He was an Ohio dentist but never really enjoyed the practice and attempted to write on the side. “Zane first visited Arizona in 1905 and returned in 1907 to go on a wild fantastic six month trip. He went with a colorful character Col. C.J. ‘Buffalo” Jones and they roped mountain lions in the Grand Canyon, hunted, explored Indian ruins, crossed the raging Colorado River, herded wild horses, camped and fished.” Grey was captivated with the West and took scrupulous notes, asked and listened to the wild tales told around campfires. This adventure is where he got his inspiration and materials for many of his books
Many of Zane Grey’s books were novels about his experiences in Arizona to portray the raw and rugged life of the West. His stories popularized the Western USA way of life in the early days of their history. He also bought and built a remote lodge in Gila County. (North of Phoenix near Payson, Arizona.) It was a charming place and Grey spent many years there vacationing and writing. He left Arizona in the 1930s for the last time. The Zane Grey Lodge was neglected and unoccupied for years after his death in 1939. In the 1950s a Phoenix businessman purchased it and he restored the lodge to its former greatness. Several years ago a forest fire in that area completely destroyed the Zane Grey restored lodge. It has not been rebuilt and is a great loss to Zane Grey’s many admirers and readers.
Since my reading Wanderer of the Wasteland I have read many of Zane Grey’s books. Each and every one was a decent tale and full of adventure and extremely descriptive. Louis L’Amour is another writer of Western lore. In his stories he usually has a “good guy” who does super human things to get justice. Louis books also have a girl friend for the hero and at the end of the story they live happily ever after. Mr. L’Amour is a contemporary writer as he served in France during World War II. He was born March 22, 1908 and died July 1988. One of his success stories involved the Sacketts, which became a TV series. He also had the Hopilong Cassidy novels and for years he had a contract with Bantam Books to write two or three novels a year. I don’t know about you but I recall never missing the TV show “Gunsmoke” with Marshall Dillon, Chester, Kitty and Doc. The events in those episodes followed Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour story plots.
I have added a number of years since those days of playing Cowboy and have traveled and lived in several communities in our Western states. It still amazes me to see the beauty, rugged landscape, deserts and great mountains when we travel. I enjoy listening to the tales told by old timers who have lived in the west most of their lives. I especially enjoy hiking in the mountains and motoring on the highways and byways of our western states. There is so much scenery and history to see and do it is never tiring. Maybe someday I’ll find the “Lost Dutchman’s Mine” when hiking in the Superstition Mountains east of Apache Junction.