Most of us go through life searching, our lives a contstant quest for all we want to have, to be and to feel. In our search for more, however, we sometimes get lost in a thickening fog of self-doubt, unable to trust our own programming. RELATIVTY OnLine’s David Anthony Hohol shares with our readers his own origins and in doing so demonstartes how the life from which we came will always ground us to world beneath our feet. For him, rebooting our souls, wiping the hard drive clean, and heading back to the simplicity of our own internal default settings provides us with both direction and strength. This month Hohol sets aside politics, culture and religion and takes us back to the basics of being.
When we search for those things that make us who we are, we often miss what’s right there in front us. Those pillars of time and circumstance, standing in the murky shadows of our highly-divided souls, often blend into the matrix; an indistinct hue of experience known, but not thought about- a life felt, but never seen.
I was raised in a prairie village nestled in a set of rolling hills that slowly build into the magnificent grandeur of the Rocky Mountains. I am a farmer’s son of a farmer’s son, and to this day call our family’s cattle ranch the only home I have ever known- the only door that has always been there for me to open. I never had to read books in order to know the stories of breaking in wild horses, or building homesteads and towering barns from the very trees that surrounded them. I never had to flip through a book to see pictures of vast fields of wheat and barely, a stoic hawk perched on a set of finely stacked hay bales, or a deer and her new fawn drinking from a fresh water creek. I never had to watch a nature program to see a new born calf struggle with its first steps of life or a freshly hatched chick fight its way out of its shell and into the waiting world. I simply had to open my eyes and breathe in all that surrounded me. I simply had to be.
Growing up around a farm I became a part of a self contained community of family and often felt as though I was living in an established, safe and uncomplicated world. Life was simple and by extension, issues of right and wrong were not complex. Those around me stood for what was moral and hard work was always readily rewarded. What results, is a situation in which a child growing up has the constant opportunity to observe, and be a part of, the ongoing work of a farm. Watching my grandfather pull a calf from its struggling mother or my uncle stack a perfectly packed load of bales atop his trusty half-ton, instilled within me that looking up to feeling. This produced the kind of a respect and admiration that turns role models into heroes. There are always exceptions in terms of urban careers, where growing children can watch what their parents do everyday, but this simply not the norm. Whether it be offices, factories, corporations, hospitals, schools or the countless other occupational structures that insulate parents from their children, today’s young have little, if any opportunity to see what it is dad or mom do at work. I see this as a glaring weakness in today’s society. This limitation has greatly contributed to weaker family units and a more fragmented social construct.
Unfortunately, this is less a criticism and more a comment on the natural state of things in today’s world. Urban centers continue to swell at a record pace. The slow death of the family farm and rural living in general is a fact of life unfolding across the globe. This is why I’m lucky. To this day, the family farm is the only place where my feet truly feel as though they’re firmly planted beneath me. And while under the soft and comforting wing of my humble beginnings, the rest of the world often seems like a noisy, cluttered and fast-paced dream.
The first book I ever read straight through, from cover to cover, was a Louis L’Amour novel called Utah Blaine. It was my grandfather’s who, despite having only a ninth grade education, was a voracious reader. On the farm, fourteen years of age meant it was time for work and not school, but I always admired his never-ending thirst for knowledge and count him as one of the most intelligent men I have ever met. Utah Blaine is the story of a strong and brave rancher-turned-marshal that grabbed hold of me right from the start.
When a gang of ruthless ranchers tries to hang an innocent farmer, Blaine is there to stop them. The gang of free range thugs is determined to scare off any farmers, but Blaine is there to save the day, again and again. The story was exciting, but what drew me to the book was its setting, as page after page described the very place I grew up in. My family’s farm, the prairies around it, the horses out by the barn and the fields and fences that made a checkerboard of the land beneath our feet, prosaically came to life before me eyes. I had never seen my life, so to speak, work as the co-star of a novel and for that reason I couldn’t put it down. I pictured my grandfather, or even myself, in the many situations that L’Amour was describing. I went on to read several Louis L’Amour books throughout junior high school, with my favorite being Lonesome Gods. The story of 6-year-old traveling across the desert to California with his dying father, so that he can live with his rancher Grandfather is a powerful tale of identity. As they reach the edge of the desert and before arriving at the ranch, a group of outlaws kills the boy’s father. The young boy is then taken 40 miles into the desert and left there to die.
Determined to survive, the boy begins walking through the desert alone. After two days and nearing death, he is finally picked up by a lone cowboy riding the trail. He takes the boy to an abandoned log cabin and there he begins his new life. I read Lonesome Gods again only last week. It had been more than twenty years since I’d first flipped through its pages and I so loved re-visiting a part of my youth I very much enjoyed.
Growing up in the setting I did, reading Louis L’Amour books and watching John Wayne and Clint Eastwood westerns greatly influenced me. On a grander scale, the Western novel, and the many Hollywood films that followed, have left an indelible mark on the entire world. Virtually everyone knows the ingredients of the Western – the rifles and Colt .45s; the long-horned steers and sprawling ranches; the stagecoaches and the cowboy hats; the outlaws and the lawmen. All many have to do is close there eyes and the settings of the Western will also come to mind. The awe-inspiring structures of Monument Valley, the treeless expanses of an open and rolling prairie and the snow capped vision of mountain ranges in the distance are all inseparable parts of the Western motif.
With that said, the true allure of the Western has always been its acute simplicity. Everyone wore a gun on their hip and moral conflict could be resolved certainly and concisely. Right and wrong were always clearly defined and this decisive nature allows the West to take on mythical proportions, to become a place where legends are born. These legends were embodied by Western heroes such as Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Wild Bill Hickok, Sitting Bull, Buffalo Bill Cody and Calamity Jane. For me, as a young boy living on the prairies, it was my grandfather.
Perhaps what’s most amazing about the Western is the infinite number of tales drawn from such a small stable of situations. Virtually all conflicts grow out of three main archetypal circumstances: homesteaders vs. Indians, farmers vs. ranchers, and outlaws vs. the newly forming laws of civilization. These conflicts, although moral at their base, are often brought to their rightful conclusion via physical action. Gunfights, stagecoaches, Indian raids, bank holdups, lynch mobs and posses chasing down a wanted man all sit at the heart of the Western. The Western resolved its conflicts through violent brawls and gunfights, reestablishing the moral order with the cathartic fire of a pistol during the final scene. For the Western, simple was truly beautiful.
I sometimes forget the simplicity is the truest form of beauty. I forget to think about what I have and what’s good in my life; I forget to appreciate all the things that make me smile, that make me feel good inside, that make me feel free. When I do, I know its time to go back to basics and remember just who I am. It’s been awhile since I’ve done so. But as I type out these last words and ready myself for bed… I know tomorrow will be a better day and time will pass more simply.
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