When I say this there are those who will think I’m crazy. You can go to Walmart, Kmart or any stores where they sell games so kids can fight aliens in outer space. If you can draw them away for a minute, ask if they know who Clint Eastwood is. We are building a big enough generation gap where these young’uns have parents not much older than 35. If they are lucky enough to have a grandparent who can hunt down a Dirty Harry movie to watch they might get a short education. As they watch for a short few minutes, then wander off to their bedrooms to play a game on their video tablets.

I recently rented and watched a western made in 2023 with Nicolas Cage. It is already out to rent, which shows you how popular it was at the movies. Then the new Avatar comes to our fair city of Grand Junction, Colo., it may be the only movie I have to stand in line to watch.

I know one of the idols of my childhood is still making movies. Come this May he will be 93 years old. I went to all of his movies and I couldn’t even find the westerns listed when I was a kid and he was a kid 23 years old and fresh out of the Army. Yes he served, he was a veteran which is more than I can say for some of the young men of the day. Although I have met some fine young men who talk about joining as soon as they finish high school, yes there is a great deal of youth who still believe in America. All you have to do is go to a rodeo to find that out. Just ask them if they know who Rowdy Yates is?

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I have a tie that I wear on joyous occasions and when I do people say that’s Clint Eastwood. I look at them like they have lost their mind and say that is not Clint Eastwood, that my dear friend is Rowdy Yates. Most of them recognize the face but not the character and start to argue. Oh yeah! That’s when he made those Western thingies. I immediately know I’m talking to the wrong crowd.

I remember returning from Vietnam there were Rawhide reruns but suddenly he had become Clint Eastwood. The Enforcer, Magnum Force basically known as Dirty Harry.

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Then he went to Italy, I didn’t know they had so many outlaws in that country. Somewhere on the boat they lost his name. The movies had a name, he was just known as the man with no name. He could shoot fast, straighter and reload just-in-time to get the bad guys as they walked through the door. Those of us who grew up on Rawhide, Gunsmoke and Cheyenne learned it was the end of the clean cowboy.

These guys looked like they hadn’t had a shower since birth, lost their razors robbed some dead guy for their clothes, and voices were not in sync except for the occasional Hollywood actor.

None of which mattered, including the music that didn’t match as long as there was a lot of shooting and bombs going off as in the Good the Bad and the Ugly.

As one cowboy to another keep your heels down and your eyes along the skyline.

This is Buckeye Butch, Fruita Colo., signing off till next time.