Americans emulate cowboy heroes

Our fondness for cowboy heroes is typically American. “We may be the loneliest people on earth, and it’s no accident that the cowboy who rides alone should be the symbol of the American,” said Anthony Padovano, author of a number of books and a faculty member at Fordham University. Padovano calls American a continent “blessed with dreams but also haunted by loneliness.”

Yes, it is lonesome, living on a farm, or a ranch out in the country. I spent the first 13 years of my life dreaming of cowboys, driving a tractor as I got older. Our basic entertainment was getting to go to town to a movie, a cowboy movie. Two theaters we could go to was the Lyceum and Mesa theaters, both with doubles features. At that time, 1943, Clovis was what I’d call a cow town. I had a broom stick horse and played cowboy out on the farm.

Our mother gave us kids 25