Marilyn's Musings

Boys of my generation grew up playing cowboys and Indians. Our attraction to the Wild West was reinforced by books, magazines, radio shows (TV came later; I was in high school when my family got our first set) and Saturday matinees. If such things can be an influence--and I believe they are--I might add I grew up (and now live again) in a house built by a man who rode with Buffalo Bill Cody, my mother said she read a lot of Pulp Westerns while carrying me, and my own early reading included a good dose of Zane Grey, Emerson Hough, Vardis Fisher and similar writers. My preference in our games was always to portray the Indian, though I knew that fated me to generally be the loser. I've always had an affinity for the Indian, which was nourished by spring hunts for arrowheads and other artifacts, reading and studying about their ways and culture. I consider the cruel and degrading reservation system one of the major blots on the history of our nation. Another of m...