The A – Z Challenge; Z: The Code of the West

(Instead of doing a differently named subject based on the letter for the day, I’m using the letters of the alphabet as hierarchical headings only. There have been a few exceptions, and a number of them that JP re-titled in the comments.)

Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 23824 – 1263

Howdy, Partners!

To tell the truth, I have only very rarely ever been greeted with the word, “Howdy.” I don’t know exactly where it’s supposed to be from, and if you say it where you come from, that’s nice, I just have never been greeted that way.

Well, folks, I made it all the way to the end, which makes me happy and even amazed. Scrolling through the archives, I have noticed that I do better when I have a streak going and am forced to be consistent. I have a few ideas, so we’ll see how long I can go before I fall back to my old ways.

Here’s the haps:

One of the strangest and most annoying things to me is city people who move to the country and then whine about how much better they had it in the city.  I used to ride the bus with a guy from Los Angeles who always had something negative to say.  “Back in L.A., the buses were never this slow.”  Or “They think they have crime here, back in L.A., the gangs…”  “I couldn’t believe what I heard about an ambulance getting stuck in a snowdrift on a dirt road, and they won’t get it out until Tuesday!”

Finally, I couldn’t stand the guy anymore.  We were usually the only ones on a certain part of the ride, and even if I sat in the back with my face toward the window and my nose in a book and didn’t answer, he would still grouse out loud.  “Back in Los Angeles, it never snowed and got cold like it does here.”  And that was the day I turned around and said, “IF EVERYTHING WAS SO MUCH BETTER IN LOS ANGELES, WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?  GO BACK TO LOS ANGELES, ALREADY!!!”  And yeah, I did use my “caps-lock voice” to say it.  I was tired of it.  And do you know what the guy told me?  He actually said, “Oh I couldn’t stand the big city anymore and moved here to get away from it all.  I just didn’t expect it to be so small-town and rural here.”

But really, his problems are not as unique as you might think.  He was actually part of a growing group of people that are migrating here to get away from the big city (And IMHO ruining the place for the rest of us. Lately, it seems like Denver has turned into Little L.A. and Colorado Springs is turning into Little Denver. ) thinking they want to live the rustic, rugged life of the pioneers.  Except that the people who settled out here did without a lot and still do without a lot.  Now, just because you decided to honor us with your presence by moving here, doesn’t mean that we will necessarily appreciate the honor right away. In the late 1990s, my wife had an elderly client who’d arrived here in a covered wagon from Nebraska at the turn of the last century as a toddler. She didn’t remember a whole lot about the trip, but she could remember the dog running alongside the wagon. There is a county road on the plains, Enoch Road, named for her family.

For example, if you move somewhere that doesn’t have a paved road, I’m sorry, but it’s not likely to be paved just for you any time soon.  It may not have been paved since the first wagons pulled in here, and likely never will be paved.  This means a lot of dust in the summer and mud in the spring and fall.  No, that road never gets plowed in winter unless you belong to a property-owners organization and pay your dues.  Then it will depend on whether the guy who does it can get out of his yard. There are places in the mountains where phone service is still on a party line, and there are no cell phone towers.  Water is pumped from a hole in the ground, and sewage is done by a septic or other system.

Colorado is an open-range state.  Don’t know what that means? Maybe you aren’t ready to move here yet.  If you don’t want cattle, sheep, or other livestock on your property, you are responsible for building a fence to keep them out.  Also, if you hit one with your car, you are responsible to pay for it, whether it totals your car or not.  Oh, and if you live in a farming or ranching area, the summer breeze will gently waft the smell of freshly mown hay to your nostrils as well as the smell of its byproducts.  You will have to live with this.  Also, farmers and ranchers often work around the clock and at all hours of the day and night so noise and lights are likely to happen out in the fields.

Zane Grey wrote a book called “Code of the West,” in which he portrayed how men in what is commonly called “The Old West” lived and ought to live and act and behave themselves.  He never outlined an exact list of rules and regulations, but you could tell what his characters believed in by how they acted. What is “The West?” What I mean when I refer to The Old West would be anything west of the Mississippi River from the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 up until the time the last western territory, Arizona, was admitted as a state on February 14, 1912. I think the time period referred to as the “Wild West” could be narrowed down to not long after the Civil War ended in 1865 until the 1880s although some say it was at least until 1900. It was a time when any kind of organized law enforcement was pretty much nonexistent. But even then, there was an unspoken code that most people lived by, and that is embodied in Western stories and old movies. Guys like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid, Zorro and on and on, portrayed morally upright, respectable men who knew what they were about. Then there are the Sacketts, Chantrys, and Talons and other heroes that Louis L’Amour wrote about and I’ve discussed here. Rooster Cogburn, Doc Holliday, and Wyatt Earp are some more iconic figures, both real and fictional, who were flawed, imperfect people who tried to do the right thing when push came to shove.

Mostly, though, the American Frontier was populated with folks. Regular people trying to get by. Farmers, ranchers, cowhands, farmhands, bankers, and shop owners, just to mention a few. They all had one thing in common, however. A desire for a better life.

The singing cowboy, Gene Autry, developed a code for all of his young radio and movie fans that, by all accounts that I read, he also lived by:

Gene Autry’s Cowboy 10 Commandments

1.  The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2.  He must never go back on his word or a trust confided in him.
3.  He must always tell the truth.
4.  He must be gentle with children, the elderly, and animals.
5.  He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6.  He must help people in distress.
7.  He must be a good worker.
8.  He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits.
9.  He must respect women, parents, and his nation’s laws.
10.  The Cowboy is a patriot.

And I think, despite my complaints, the West is still full of great people. People who try to live their lives this way, whether they would define it as such or not.

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