The Old West Musta Got Pretty Old

   The more I think about it, it seems to me the old west just couldn'ta smelled very good.  Horses smell bad.  If you get a bunch of them together they smell really bad.  Cows are pretty much the same. That doesn't even mention they're dumber than a bag of hammers. Then you add the ubiquitous privy to that and a July day couldn't have been all that pleasant.  You gotta think any town would have been obvious from a distance, at least downwind.  I wonder if they had unique aromas?  Could a guy riding along on a bad smelling  horse say to himself, "Oh, that must be Abilene." Would the horse know it was Topeka?

    Not to mention the irregular bathing habits they had other problems.  There was the presence of high octane liquor, high caliber, low muzzle velocity weapons and gambling. That seems to be what made the plots of most '50s TV shows although, not "Leave It To Beaver" which actually was a sophomoric joke. I was forty until I knew that but I had bathed regularly.  I had discovered high octane liquor much earlier. But, I digress.
    Some guys worked in tandem to address these problems. It's reasonable to assume Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday worked as partners.  Earp controlled the violence and Holiday oversaw the gambling.  It's amusing to note how mid-twentieth century TV writers skirted the fact Miss Kitty controlled the prostitution and had a hand in the liquor distribution. They never really explain what the rooms upstairs were for. Ya gotta figure Doc Adams did his share of abortions and gave out his share of mercury.  An evening with Venus and a lifetime with Mercury. Look that reference up. You'll be either appalled or amused.  I have wondered why prostitution hasn't been dealt with more realistically but then again a moralistic climate that spawned the strip tease as an industry probably can't stand up to "realistic" examination.  Prudery is as odd as licentiousness. Actually, to my mind, licentiousness makes more sense.
    One of the things I liked about  "Gunsmoke" was a lot of people seemed to need a bath, a haircut and a better suit of clothes.  It just seemed more realistic. Imagine what Hoss, a character in a different beloved show,  had to smell like to get that nickname but he always seemed to dress nice.  It's also one of the things I liked about "Unforgiven". The one guy actually got shot in a privy.
    So, what's the point?  Well, there's a couple.  I guess, foremost, I'm interested in how we try to dress the past to make us look better so we might actually be better. I think it's misguided but kinda noble.  I guess it informs me that in order to advance the future we have to be realistic about the past.
I, also, don't think it's realistic to assume people are immoral because we ascribe some sort of morality to them. I also don't think people are moral because they tell us they are.  I especially don't think people are moral because they tell us they are.
    Lastly: A good, smelly saloon is one of the few places I'm truly happy, to quote "Silverado".