‘I’ll live. I’ll keep alive to see Texas again and all hell won’t stop me.’
The general effect of this on myself was singular—at all times when I didn’t have to do something—like dishes or homework or clean my room or help my father mend something—I was busy gunning down baddies. With whatever armed friends I could find or else completely on my own which was no less satisfying, I was shooting it out all around the suburb, going for the draw in various backyards, taking cover behind the trees in the parks, being bushwhacked at local building sites, galloping ahead of the posse across the schoolyard. Everywhere I went my trusty six-shooter went with me, and at home I had some spares in case of damage or loss or for use in really big gun battles. All I ever wanted for my birthday and at Christmas was a new gun to add to my collection, to increase my firepower over my friends and usually that was what I got. Tearful indeed were such occasions when nothing to do with the Wild West was forthcoming.
So what was this all about? The gunfights, the galloping posses, The Lone Ranger, Billy the Kid? Mythology, they say. A Twentieth Century mythology that grew up in a foreign country and spread throughout every land of the world, just the way mythologies have been doing since the first sorcerers invented them.
