Y Chromosome Requirement

Sunday was Father's Day, it also happened to coincide with Scott getting to pick the family movie, how apropos. Anyway, he picked John Wayne's "The Cowboys". Such a good movie, and our kids hadn't seen this one yet, because I have a hard time picking it.  No one wants to see John Wayne get shot, let alone in the back, then gut shot, by a low down scum bag like Bruce Dern. But so many awesome scenes in that movie, right to the end.

So I mentioned it to my young co-worker today, who said, "Huh, I don't think I have ever watched a John Wayne movie."  It took all my fortitude to not smack him right up side the head or as John Wayne would have said, "Get the hell off my spread". No wonder our young men are so lost in this generation, is there a more man's man than John Wayne? John Wayne didn't talk about his feelings and he didn't worry about hurting anyone else's.  He stood up for what he believed in, saw things in black and white, didn't tolerate this "middle of the road, get along with everyone business" that people in the PC world want now. He knew what was the right thing to do, even we he got shot in the back by a low down dirty skunk, he didn't even turn around to acknowledge that weasel. That's a man, a real man, even if it was in the movies.

My children have seen quite a variety of John Wayne movies, including Angel and the Bad Man, McClintock, Big Jake, The Quiet Man, Donovan's Reef, The Flying Tigers, and more. I know the premise "The Cowboys" may be new to some of the younger generation, but the story is how John Wayne needs to get 1,500 steers to the railhead 400 miles away, before the snow flies.  All the men are caught up with gold fever and he ends up using 10-14 year old boys, who get the job done. That may seem a little far fetched to some of you, but my Grandpa Whiting drove a wagon over Lee's Backbone when he was only 11, so to me that makes this movie pretty authentic.  Little boys did have more responsibility back then, there wasn't all this play dates, soccer practice, therapy crap.  Boys needed to become men, and guess what? They still do.  So if the men in our boys lives today aren't up to the job, I guess John Wayne movies should be required watching for all humans with a Y chromosome.