As Western Writers we're told we face a crisis of the genre. Danger lurks inside industry changes in the form of superstores and high-tech computer technology. Such challenges can either convince us we should put our energy into perma-culture or potatoes or inspire a surge of creativity. The model for our responses rides at us from the west. Great writers, like Elmer Kelton and Cindy Bonner, always deliver characters who lack perfection but whom we admire for their persistence, their way of confronting trials.
Real life delivers, too.
Consider B. Byron Price who in less than twenty years inspired a team of volunteers to convert the Cowboy Hall of Fame from certain closure to its present world-class status, rapidly expanding. With broken ribs and a compound fracture of his leg, he made his way back through fifteen miles of rock and sage and celebrated in the hospital not with self-blame or even curses for the horse, but by using the challenge as inspiration for a poem. These hardy westerners keep going, without blame, keeping their commitments. We remember them like deep-rooted trees, strong and resilient, hardy to the core, people who contribute instead of using up. A writer, Vaclac Havel, said it best.