by
Tench Tilghman
| May 31, 2012
The man in the straw hat has already lived well beyond the expectations of any. He continues to serve until he is older than all, and he retires at last to a quiet life of ranching yet again.
Times are a changing. The Great War is raging. Prohibition is exploding, and then - oil is discovered. Liquor and oil build a new raging prairie fire that transforms everything around him yet again.
Dare’s Oil in Dem Dar Plains
This new firey chaos rearranges the money, the maps, and the lives, long or short, of many. The worthless becomes worthy.
The new oil boomtowns spring up overnight. They look exactly like cattle towns of yesteryear with all the same men, women and the same whisky troubles. However, the outlaws and gang leaders graduate to become “mob bosses”. A more organized form of crime emerges, but the ground rules, legal battles, and daily politics of life remain the same.
When things in your town suddenly go to hell in a hand basket where will the good citizens turn? Who knows this Enemy? What madman would answer such a call? Who really knows How The West Was Won? Who could fight the reborn fires of hell with only a bucket? Who is that guy?
Bat Masterson wrote of the Man on the Right in 1907,
“It would take a volume the size of an encyclopedia to record the many and daring exploits and adventures of this remarkable man. His life's history has been aptly stated by a magazine writer as almost a continuation of the memoirs of Davy Crockett or the story of Kit Carson, as far as it relates to his adventures on the frontier of Kansas in the early seventies. After a career covering a period of thirty-seven years, spent mostly on the firing-line along civilization's lurid edge and after being shot at perhaps a hundred different times by the most desperate outlaws in the land, men whose unerring aim with either gun or pistol seldom failed to bring down their victims, this man…comes through it all without as much as a scratch from a bullet.”
Don’t Blame the People Who Ask For a Hero
We’re almost all the way back to the ending from our tale’s humble beginnings. Our hero is almost 70 years old. All his friends say he is crazy to answer the marshal's call again. He has a happy life, happy wife, and has more than done his part.
They say,
“You are not so young now and your draw is a little slow. Someone might kill you!"
The iconic Lawman is what he has become. He pursues Peace with passion. He understands what this means. He knows what must be done. He knows how to fight this battle with its strategies and daily tactics. Remember he really is The Rifleman. He is what he does.
He says,
“A man who knows he’s right has an edge on a man who knows he’s wrong!”
The man backs up his words with serious firepower and a certain flair for style. This appeals to western writers who still must heed the siren cry of his tale.
He long ago purchased a custom made nickel plated .45 with pearl grips inscribed with his own name. The pistol is also beautifully engraved by none other the Colt’s master craftman Cuno Helfricht - legend himself.
I hear tell he also had some other pistols fashioned of a desiguised smaller caliber with rifled bores with which to demonstrate his shooting skill when he first rode into town. But that's a long kept secret. So Shhhhhhh little doggies. Or maybe it's a myth?
He answers his concerned friends with another classic western line,
“It’s better to die in a gunfight, than in a bed like a woman”
Ladies, please don't be offended. No offense is intended. By all accounts he is always gentlemanly and above such reproach.
His lines are spoke a thousand times and in different ways in visions aplenty on the silver screen.
In his day only a very few people actually know he is already dying of “the cancer”.
It’s very unlikely this stoic man showed the pain to any.
As we asked last time How is the Model of the Hero Made?
John Wayne knows the man’s a tough and very fitting act for him to follow in his own dying days.
Who is that man?
We all know that techno tools do often get better. The models we must employ do differ based on what we need to accomplish and the specific task at hand. The fine fancy pistol above is not a rifle nor is it a shotgun. Each tool has their time and purpose as the man has taught us all. Each require a different set of skills that we must all acquire. Some tools and skills we will perfer but we must maintain them all.
AutoCAD Civil 3D is not one tool it is really three (or more depending on how you want to divide and Rule the Tool). Of course, our AutoCAD skills and AutoCAD Map 3D skills can be just as useful as our evolving Civil 3D skills.
We also have new tools like AutoCAD WS to embrace as well.
It's often way too easy to neglect the obvious.
Links to All the Man is the Straw Hat posts
Who is That Guy in the Straw Hat?
The Ballad Begins Again
Eagles Sing Reprises
Desperado Come to Your Senses
A Whisper in the Wind
Expectations of Deliverance
On the Night in Question