conagher1880

[conagher1880]

Yep, I'm still alive!

[conagher1880]

Taken near Chama, NM sometime back...

[conagher1880]

Cowboy Illogic turned 1 today!

[conagher1880]

10 posts!

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[conagher1880]

[conagher1880]

As some of you may or may not know, I’m a veteran of the United States Air Force.  I didn’t make it my life’s work, but I did do more than one term of service.  Today is the seventieth birthday of my beloved Air Force...I didn’t keep my blues, but I do have a set of US Army Air Forces/early USAF “pinks and greens.”  Since that was the uniform being worn on 18 September 1947, it’s only appropriate to post a photo of me in the first uniform of the USAF.

  Happy Birthday to my friends, my brothers and my sisters of the USAF.  You all made serving something special.

[conagher1880]

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A Civil War reenactment I participated in some years back...

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Relatively recent (July 2016).  I should have a few more up-to-date photos soon.

[conagher1880]

Coyotes

Was a cowboy I knew in New Mexico His face was burnt deep by the sun  Part history, part sage, part mesquite  He was there when Pancho Villa was young  And he'd tell you a tale of the old days  When the country was wild all around  Sit out under the stars of the Milky Way  And listen while the coyotes howl  And they go, poo yip poo yip poo  Poodi hoo di yip poo di yip poo  Poo yip poo yip poo  Poodi hoo di yip poo di yip poo  "Now the longhorns are gone  And the drovers are gone  And the Apache are gone  And the outlaws have gone  And Geronimo is gone  And The Kid is gone  And the buffalo's gone 

The desert wolf  is gone"  Well, he cursed all the roads and the oil men  And he cursed the automobile  He said, "This ain't no place for an hombre like I am  In this new world of asphalt and steel"  Then he'd look off some place in the distance  At something only he could see  He'd say, "All that's left now of the old days  Are them damned old coyotes and me"  And they go, poo yip poo yip poo  Poodi hoo di yip poo di yip poo  Poo yip poo yip poo  Poodi hoo di yip poo di yip poo  "Now the longhorns are gone  And the drovers are gone  And the Navajo are gone  And the outlaws have gone  Barboncito is gone Manuelito is gone  The buffalo are gone  The desert wolf is gone"  Then one morning they searched his adobe  He disappeared without even a word  And that night as the moon crossed the mountain  One more coyote was heard  And he'd go, poo yip poo yip poo  Poodi hoo di yip poo di yip poo  Poo yip poo yip poo  Poodi hoo di yip poo di yip poo

[conagher1880]

Chama, NM.  An aged photo.

[conagher1880]

A Few Thoughts on Westerns, the Cowboy and Life

       I've loved westerns ever since I was a small boy.  My grandfather--a cowman from Nebraska--and my father--an Airman from Texas--both introduced me to this most American of all genres at an early age. My dad got me my first cowboy hats and boots...my grandpa put me on a horse at a very early age.  Between these two influences, it was certain I'd end up either punching cattle or wearing a blue uniform.  

       I've done both.

        For several years I've taught History in high schools in New Mexico.  I have raised cattle and have worked as a cowboy for ranchers in parts of New Mexico and elsewhere in the west.  A friend once said that I'm not so much a teacher who cowboys, I'm a cowboy who teaches.  There's a lot of truth in that statement, and it's a good thumbnail description of who I am. It's also why I love westerns to this day.

     A good western needs certain elements.  It needs action, because the frontier was dynamic, and action reflects that truth. It needs simple truths, because the Old West was a place where reality ruled.  It needs to teach a small lesson about life...for example, one of the lines from the theme song to The War Wagon states very truthfully that "Most men are fightin' for a wagon full of gold, scratchin' and fightin' for a wagon full of gold...My piece of land, my cattle brand, a place to rest my head, the feelin' of a woman's love are all you really need for livin'...but wrong or right, I have to fight, 'cause when the truth is told, all men are fightin' for a wagon full of gold!"  The lesson is universal...a friend can be as close as a brother (Tombstone)...you will be wronged, but that wrong can be righted (The War Wagon)...right WILL prevail, but it has to be tougher than wrong...these are simple life lessons, but also true ones.

     A good western also should have some sadness in it, especially these days. Our society is so warped, so twisted, so toxic that we need to be reminded of how it was in the late 19th Century...and we should be saddened that those times have gone.  Monte Walsh is set during the late 1880's (not the 2004 remake, the 1971 original), and we see one man's world come falling down around him..men who fought the Civil War heroically are reduced to stringing barbed wire...good, hard-working men are turned into outlaws...and men who can do the toughest jobs have futures either roaming from place to place, or as bad parodies of themselves.  Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid shows how as the west closed, freedom was replaced by having to conform to the eastern norms of life...and the modern western, The Cowboy Way, shows how western values and customs are viewed quaintly by our modern, "sophisticated" urban society.

          "Pajama Boy."  "The 'Man Bun.'"  Skinny jeans. Metrosexuals.  George Clooney. Jim Parsons.  David Schwimmer.  The Big Bang Theory. Obama. "LGBTQWTF." The cowboy has been shoved aside for the "sensitive, feminine male." Go away, Sam Elliott!  Get out of here, John Wayne!  We don't want you around anymore, Clint Eastwood, Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, Steve McQueen, James Arness or William S. Hart!  Your times are gone!  Who needs Tom Doniphan or Cable Hogue?  Chet Rollins or Monte Walsh?  Wil Andersen and Blaze Tracey are anachronisms...the male ideal in the modern age is Sheldon Cooper...snarky, wimpy, ambisexual.  The modern male is even more of a weakling than Alan Alda, as if that's even possible!  What place is there in this world for Conn Conagher, Augustus McCrae, Woodrow Call, "Dish" Boggett or "Shorty" Austin?

      We need the cowboy.  In a world where freedom is disappearing at an appalling pace, in a world where ISIS is advancing at a horrifying rate, and where the thug leader of Russia is openly mocking the United States...where he cultivates the traditional image of Russian masculinity, and the outgoing president of the United States acts like a fey, cringing coward...whose mannerisms are those of homosexuals in pre-Code Hollywood comedies...and where we no longer even know which bathroom to use, we need the toughness, the self-reliance, the CLARITY of the cowboy.  We need the traditional western.

     It seems to me that whenever Quentin Tarantino touches a genre, he turns it into dross.  Tarantino did that with his two bastardizations of the western, Django Unchained (not even set in the West) and The Hateful Eight.  Not even Kurt Russell, an actor with a STRONG western background could save one of Tarantino's pictures.  Westerns now are moving in directions not needed...cheap, simple, straight to DVD pieces which serve only to keep the genre alive..."new age" movies which have elements of pseudo-Native American mysticism (and little box office appeal)...over-the-top Tarantino abominations which show no love for the western, and instead, only serve to humiliate the genre which has been called "America's Shakespeare."

     Our society needs the western.  We need to be reminded...we need to be TAUGHT...that we are a free people!  Our ancestors tamed a continent...and actually RESPECTED, for the most part, that continent's first inhabitants!  We need to re-learn how to defend our freedoms from the tyrants in the East…become men and women again, and be proud of who we are! We need to reject the wimps and the "Pajama Boys," and equally, reject the Rosie O'Donnells, the Lena Dunhams and the Amy Schumers…they need to be replaced with a new generation of real men and real women, men who are strong and capable…women who have backbone, but also femininity…and who show respect, manners, and understand certain concepts of decency and decorum.  People who can be down-to-Earth, but also know when it's not right to use language normally used around livestock.

      I'm not perfect.  I'm not a city man with city manners…I do open doors for ladies, I sadly DO cuss more than I should, but I AM a man, and I'm not ashamed of it.  I try to demonstrate to my students what a man SHOULD be.  I know how to shoot, I can fix fence, castrate calves, rope (not well, but I can), I can break a horse, cook and do what a man needs to do.  I won't wear skinny jeans, footie pajamas or a "man bun." I'm a cowboy and an historian…a former serviceman…a rough kind of gentleman…and a man who misses the lessons taught by the western.

      We need the cowboy…the marshal…the gunman…the pioneer to come back.  We need the strong Natives, fighting for their way of life…the drovers moving the cattle, the soldiers crossing the Plains…the stories of the heroes of the past, because they WERE heroes.  They would be ashamed and horrified at what has happened to our society…as I am.

         We need the cowboy to ride back from out of the past…and drag this society back onto the trail it's strayed from.

                             We need the western.

                                                  (written in late 2016)

[conagher1880]

Just getting started, so here’s a scan of a portrait sketch I did some years back of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.

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100 likes!