Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

Just the other day I was having lunch with a friend and he was lament about his grandsons. 

He said,'They don't even know what a cowboy is!" I thought about and said that i wasn't surprised. How many kids nowadays know what a cowboy is? 

When I was a boy every one of my buddies wanted to be a cowboy. Not just any cowboy either.  We wanted to be Hoppy, Gene, or Roy.  Or maybe the little more adventurous would want to be Lash LaRue or maybe the Cisco Kid, or Lone Ranger. We would catch robbers and fight Indians just like our heroes.

I can still recall my Mama calling me at 5:30 on a weekday, "Tony, it's time for the Lone Ranger" I'd get real close to that old radio and hear those words: "Out of the west comes the thundering hooves of the great horse Silver..." For the next half hour my ear was glued to that radio.  I was with the Lone Ranger and his faithful Indian companion, Tonto.  And, yes, the next time were at the grocery I'd beg Mama to buy Merita bread--it was the kind the Lone Ranger ate. Of course the next day we'd discuss the episode during recess at the schoolhouse. And then there were the movies I went to see with my grandmother.  In glorious black and white our heroes would right all the wrongs of the old west.

I'm not sure what happened to our western heroes. They never drank, smoked, cursed and never beat up a guy that didn't have it coming. And they treated all women folk with courtesy and respect.

I guess my look back on those heroes of yesterday can best be described in this song by Mason Williams.   Cowboy Buckaroo

I was raised on matinees on Saturday afternoons,

lookin' up at Hoppy, Gene and Roy... oh boy!

And I grew up a-thinkin', "the best a man could do

is be a rootin'-tootin' straight-shootin' cowboy buckaroo."

(chorus)

Spurs a-janglin', whoopi-ti-yi-yay.

Just a-wranglin' to every single day.

Yo-da-lida-ladi, yo-da-lida-ladi,

yo-da-lida-ladi, ooooooooooo....

A man should be a rootin'-tootin' straight-shootin'

cowboy buckaroo.

A buckaroo's a cowboy who believes in what is good.

A buckaroo wouldn't hurt you if he could... if he could.

I ain't afraid to say it 'cause I ain't afraid of you.

I'm a rootin'-tootin', straight-shootin' cowboy buckaroo.

(repeat chorus)

Should we be the way we are, or be how we could be?

Could illusion become reality?

I've got to ask the question, 'cause the answer is overdue...

why can't we all ride together and be cowboy buckaroos?

(repeat chorus)

(tag)

Why can't we all ride together and be cowboy buckaroos?

You reckon they'll make a song about the Power Rangers?