That man in the straw hat left a happy home at 15 the second son of a farmer.
He left with only his daddy’s trusty Sharps rifle, a saddle and a horse. If this sounds like the beginning of a familiar ballad or two or three, it probably is. “Go West Young Man” is exactly what he did along with a whole lot of other folks at the time. The Song Remains the Same. Times are a changing. Times are tough. The not so trusty greenback is in short supply.
A young man must earn his keep and make a place for himself in the world. This one did. He did not ride all that far to find it, but far enough.
Did destiny simply find him? That’s a question that any hero must ask and ask again it seems.
Quite the Shot
Many people know “Buffalo Bill” Cody shot a whole lot of buffalo as a professional hunter. Most people these days don’t even know what they took and used all those animal hides for. Did they use them? Certainly, they did make fine coats and hats. Many were made into transmission belts for the exploding number of textile mills and other industries in the northeast. Many went to places even farther east.
General Fremont also had his reasons to kill buffalo so as to create a way to confine those other hunters on the High Plains. We’re driftin’ a bit. That’s another story as Dustin himself can tell ya.
Buffalo Bill publicly claimed the “official” record. Everyone who knew anything knew that was spin and bluster designed only to draw the evening’s crowd for a bit of greenhorn entertainment. Ya see… if you cook the horn of a newly slaughtered animal too hot the horn will indeed turn green. This is the apprentice jeweler’s first mistake to make the useful useless with the wrong details. The real man was someone else who probably did not care to remember the systematic slaughter. He never seeks to put it on for show. Who was that guy?
Four Men Ride Out Only Three Ride Back
The legend of the Sharps rifle, sharpshooting, and one man armies reminds me a bit of that other western- Quigley Down Under. Even a Tom Selleck hero can get hired by the wrong side and have to make mid-course corrections that lead to both expected and unexpected consequences. The ambush of beasts and some scouting ahead for the authorities can lead to the killing of eight men whom he may admire in another circumstance. We’ve seen this story too in both black and while and in color.
All remembered tales must contain a dose of tragedy and hero. There is the concoction of the medicine show. There is the spirit of higher purposes. War even undeclared is always cruel. The heroic battle that gains the man some fame also ends in the untimely death of the man's elder brother.
“It changes a man: sometimes for the worse and sometimes for the better.”
This is always a matter of personal choice and something not so mysterious we call “character” as all the bad or good actors know. The not so simple choices of character that we all must face form the nutty center of much that entertains us from Hamlet to Hang Them High. The man's story becomes almost unavoidable. The subject of more than a dime novel.
Who was that guy?
More next time about the man as we'll explore and reprise a famous Eagles lament and how that bears on the man in the straw hat.
Meanwhile back in AutoCAD Civil 3D land in the turbulent time of upgrade, we must remember that the details we fix now and craft correctly into our Civil 3D Styles and Templates really can get us a productivity Quigly.
The Quigly
The term is of course a reference to the above mentioned movie in which the hero takes out two bad guys with a single almost miraculous shot. Performance under pressure is not an accident. It takes practice. Of course, this feat is really the result of considerable skill, the right tools, careful planning, and thorough preparation.
Since model-based software like AutoCAD Civil 3D relies heavily of the use of named references we can develop or better yet employ a standard planned set of Naming Rules to manage our Styles and Features inside the Civil 3D Dynamic Model. This also applies within the larger structure of our Civil 3D projects and how we must deliver our work.
You really can't double down and get more consistent models, easier to use styles and templates, and more publication flexibility if you simply pretend things are the way they were in the past. Do not avoid Naming Standards issues. Don't be a greenhorn.
Grab the Bull by the Horns
Links to all the Man is the Straw Hat posts