Just Like the Movies~

Has anyone seen the movie "True Grit" yet?  I must admit I was afraid to watch it, as John Wayne is my favorite western actor.  I didn't think any remake of a Wayne western would be worth watching.  I was wrong!  It was really good.  Jeff Bridges was the perfect Rooster, and Hailee Steinfeld is way better than Kim Darby in the original.  This weeks posts are all about dads , so I thought I'd share another memory of mine. 


On Saturday nights the PBS channel used to have something they called the Good Times Picture Show.  It was almost always a Wayne western or war movie.  And on Sunday mornings at 8 they always showed a western.  My Dad and I used to love to tape those on VHS , and then watch them on Sunday afternoon after church.  We would eat lunch and fire up the VCR and root for John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes, Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, and Harry Carey, Senior and Junior.  That might seem like a small or insignificant thing to remember, but it meant a great deal to me.  See, I loved riding my horse, and shooting guns, and wearing my cowboy clothes.  I thought the westerns were great reflections of real life.  ( Fantasy , I know, lol)  But , when I watched my Dad and saw him embody the ideals of the western hero, I thought all of life was like that.  Don't cheat.  Don't lie.  Always work your hardest.  Don't steal.  Always have a firm handshake.  Never say something behind someone's back , that you wouldn't say to their face.  And never , ever , ever shoot a man in the back. ( Not sure where that applied in real life, but hey, you never know.) But, I learned a great deal from those pictures, it's true.  When I grew up and got a job, and then got married, and went out into the "real" world, I was very surprised to see that all people were not like the movies, or my hero Dad.  They would lie, cheat, steal, and stab you in the back to get ahead.  But my lessons served me well.  I realized that even though the real world was not like my ideas, I could still choose to live my life on the terms of the old westerns.  Just like my Dad taught me.  Just like the movies.

Here's to some old fashioned values~ Ruby Jeanette