While flipping through channels the other day, I happened upon one of the American Film Institute shows about the movies they've rated as the best 10 of different genres. AFI has a lot of rankings of movies by different criteria--top movie in a specific genre, 100 best movie quotes, 100 best movie heroes and villains, and on and on. I really like shows like these but have to be careful watching them because my first impulse is to get out a pen and paper and start making lists of movies I HAVE to see--and then I get a bit compulsive about it. (Someday I'll talk about my other lists for my other compulsions).
But back to the small part of the show I saw--I caught the part about westerns. It brought back all my old dreams of being a cowboy.
There were a lot of obstacles between me and my cowboy dreams. First off, I was a girl but I solved that little problem by insisting that everyone call me "John". Second big problem was living in Minnesota and in a town--but I figured that was only temporary. As soon as I was old enough to leave home I could head out west and do my real cowboy stuff. In the meantime, we lived on the edge of a hill and there was plenty of room to roam. The third big obstacle was a slight fear of horses-- but I pretty much blamed that on not finding the right horse. My cousins had a horse, (a Welsh pony if I remember right) but that horse was not trained like Trigger or Champion (Gene Autry) or even Mr. Ed. When we wanted to ride it we had to trick it to catch it--it did not come when we whistled or called or when it sensed we were in danger. In fact, that horse was a great disappointment in the cowboy skills area.
I loved my holsters and pistols and the occassional plastic rifle. I even got cowboy boots once. In the movie "Stagecoach" there is a scene where the stagecoach is being pulled by a team of six horses going full speed and the cowboy jumps off the front of the stagecoach onto the backs of the rear pair of horses and then works his way up to the middle pair of horses and then to the lead pair of horses. I don't remember why he was doing such a dangerous thing--I was too busy studying his technique in case I was called upon to do the same thing in my cowboy career someday.
It could happen...
But back to the small part of the show I saw--I caught the part about westerns. It brought back all my old dreams of being a cowboy.
There were a lot of obstacles between me and my cowboy dreams. First off, I was a girl but I solved that little problem by insisting that everyone call me "John". Second big problem was living in Minnesota and in a town--but I figured that was only temporary. As soon as I was old enough to leave home I could head out west and do my real cowboy stuff. In the meantime, we lived on the edge of a hill and there was plenty of room to roam. The third big obstacle was a slight fear of horses-- but I pretty much blamed that on not finding the right horse. My cousins had a horse, (a Welsh pony if I remember right) but that horse was not trained like Trigger or Champion (Gene Autry) or even Mr. Ed. When we wanted to ride it we had to trick it to catch it--it did not come when we whistled or called or when it sensed we were in danger. In fact, that horse was a great disappointment in the cowboy skills area.
I loved my holsters and pistols and the occassional plastic rifle. I even got cowboy boots once. In the movie "Stagecoach" there is a scene where the stagecoach is being pulled by a team of six horses going full speed and the cowboy jumps off the front of the stagecoach onto the backs of the rear pair of horses and then works his way up to the middle pair of horses and then to the lead pair of horses. I don't remember why he was doing such a dangerous thing--I was too busy studying his technique in case I was called upon to do the same thing in my cowboy career someday.
It could happen...
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