And now his last…
Many of us go about our lives in east coast Martrix fashion—heads
down, tapping away at keyboards, biding our time until hopefully some ritual
fun interludes. Rarer still comes the time of high adventure—a big trip
somewhere exotic or an activity that lands way outside one’s comfort zone. I
suppose that’s why so many of us gravitate to action and adventure movies as a temporary
escape. They take us places we would never see and provide the only proven
method of time travel. For my father, his preferred setting is the Old West. The
bottoms of his soles have touched the dirt of so many western novel and movie locations,
I cannot possibly begin to list them all. Perhaps this wanderlust of his
germinated from the traits of his favorite author Louis L’Amour, who
insisted on visiting and took detailed notes for each potential setting. This
was long before the days of Google Earth, Wikipedia, and YouTube, so this was
indeed important. Still is. Could you imagine Robert Ludlum never dining at a Zürich
lakeside café? Point being, Dad never wasted a travel opportunity; it kept father
time away similar perhaps to Baron Munchausen’s fable. And, being as learned as
Dad is with the west of olde, it is a pleasant surprise when he heaps praise on
a Hollywood western as “mostly accurate”. I tend to think he was particularly fond of Robert Duvall's card cuttin'.
Last published in the Gainesville Times, February 14, 1990, Prof. Alex Taylor provides his take on what has become a much-loved and awarded classic.
More follows the column.
Never saw it? Lordy, Lordy... The miniseries is currently available for streaming on Starz.
On a sad note, Alex's long-time huntin' buddy and family friend Fred Shope passed away this past July, aged 90. He sold his automotive service business and indeed retired just a few years after the column published. Much huntin', fishin' and 'advisin' ensued.
Okay, confession time. I lied. Sort of...
Alex Taylor's Crime Stories actually makes one more appearance in the Gainesville Times shortly before Christmas 1992. I thought it might make a fitting resolution to end his republication in similar fashion.
About Alex's referenced books? Funny thing—life and its distractions. I can talk about this because of all the delays with Dust's sequel WHICH I AM WORKING ON! Sorry... had to vent. News Flash—I'm near the end. R e g a r d l e s s, Dad's books were never completed. No real excuses, just a function of life and time. I can attest that they were in fact being drafted. Crime, of course. If or when I get time, it's my plan to coax the old man into completing at least one of them, or at least nailing a sketch. We'll see...
Catch y'all next week!
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