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an armchair guide

to the west

h u m o r

$7.99 u.S.

9

Contrary to popular

folklore, the history of the

American West did not

begin with John Wayne.

Actually, the West preceded “The

Duke” by several weeks—at least.

In those several weeks the following

events happened:

Indians (a.k.a. Native Americans,

alias The Ancient Ones, d.b.a. People

Who Were Here First) sprouted,

qFrom Yon

TO HITHERr

A Brief History of tHe AmericAn West

10 11

thrived, and developed culture, agriculture,

aquaculture, and hay fever. Then on Tuesday,

a whole bunch of them moved out and left

their houses to the National Park Service.

Fortunately for millions of Japanese travelers,

the style of their homes was exactly what

the park service was looking for in a Popular

Foreign Tourist Attraction.

Some of these native peoples went east (a

review of their literature reveals that some

now regret it) to greet Christopher Columbus

and invite him to Thanksgiving dinner; others

remained in the West where the air was cleaner

and they didn’t have to take their chances

on a twenty-passenger commuter flight to

Plymouth Rock, which was experiencing heavy

fog and brutal traffic snarls on I-93 anyway.

Instead, those who remained in the West were

taking their chances on a bunch of guys,

known as Frenchmen, who stunk because

they never changed their undershorts. It was

during this era that Centennial was written

by John Boy Walton. (Years later, after the

commercial jetliner had been invented, this

same author penned the first “disaster” novel,

The Bridges of Hohokam Wigwam.)

Meanwhile, the Frenchmen developed the

fur industry, taking perfectly good beavers

and turning them into coats for women back

in Baltimore, by then a growing suburb

of Plymouth Rock. Thus began the basic

economic policy of the American West:

sucking it dry by any means possible for the

benefit of people in far-distant places.

W

Soon gold diggers came, followed,

in order, by sodbusters, tinhorns,

buckaroos, and Sonny and Cher. The

gold diggers threw up shantytowns

that consisted of dwellings seven feet apart,

each one looking exactly like the next: same

color, same shape, same two-buckboard garage.

Homely as they were, the building style took

hold and persists to the modern day, now

enhanced with dusk-to-dawn patio lighting.

Today we give large, barren, infertile tracts of

these dwellings names like Peachtree Corners,

Vista Perdida, and Canterbury Hills, of which

not a single descriptor is accurate except “turn

left at Elm” (which does not, of course, refer to

an actual tree).