ChicagoScope Podcast

I'm in downtown Wheat Ridge, Colorado, sitting in Big Sky Espresso Cafe and taking good advantage of their free Wi-Fi.

Just across the street from the cafe is Wheat Ridge Middle School, which opened about 10 years ago to replace the old Wheat Ridge Junior High, from which I graduated ninth grade. Even then, I appreciated the solid, classic buildings in which I attended classes. Our campus had been Wheat Ridge High School -- and the auditorium was equipped with all sorts of professional-level stage equipment that many small Chicago theaters would envy today.

I have several fond book memories of Wheat Ridge Junior High. That's where I was introduced to the works of Ray Bradbury and Owen Wister. I guess I had overly romanticized Bradbury as some kind of ideal, because just a couple of years back I saw him on "Politically Incorrect" where, during a discussion of sexual harassment in the workplace, Bradbury casually opined what man wouldn't like to reach out and grab a pretty female co-worker's behind?

I was shocked -- shocked, I tell you. And it didn't stop there...

Yesterday, while browsing through the used book stacks at Black and Read, I found and paid $2.50 for a vintage copy of Wister's classic 1902 novel, "The Virginian" and spent much of last night becoming reacquainted with this wonderful story.

I had to get past Wister's preface, though. In it, he counters criticism that he had no business writing a romance of the Old West from the comfort of his home Back East. So, I'm merrily reading along...

Now and again, somebody warns the public that my Western stories are written by a person who was never a cowboy himself. True. Quite true. But shouldn't these acute thinkers also remind us that the author of Othello wasn't a n-----, the creator of Sherlock Holmes isn't a detective, and that the man who painted Vesuvius had never been a volcano?

Interesting, yep, good observations. And not unlike what I've said many times: If you want to be a cowboy, just put on the hat. Yep, that's right and -- WHOA!!! What the hell was that about Shakespeare?

I calmed down and rationalized that, well, like all of us surely Wister was a product of his times and that in 1902 his phraseology would, regrettably, have been viewed as far less problematic than today. However, I then noticed that although "The Virginian" had been first published in 1902, Wister wrote the revised preface in 1928!

He should have known better, even in 1902. Bradbury should have known better, too.

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January 2007