Heroes

To the best of my knowledge, I have never blogged about what I did on the weekend or disclosed intimate details about myself just for the sake of 'sharing'. With the exception of the picture to the right, I never post photographs of myself. Although I would characterize myself as an intensely private, perhaps even secretive, person (I am a Scorpio), my assumption is that little I do is terribly interesting - certainly not blog-worthy - to myself, nor would it be to a blogosphere of strangers. But today I have chosen to break my own rules.

Señor Gato Gringo and I went to the movies today. The film was The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Why do I mention this? For a number of reasons. Once we made the decision to go see the film, the folk song Jesse James started coursing through my brain. Although I don't pretend to have the entire song committed to memory, I can still sing a few verses as well as the chorus:

Well Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life,
Three children now they were brave.
Well that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard,
He laid poor Jesse in his grave.

Nonetheless I was jolted when, towards the end of the film, the song was performed by a bowery saloon singer. I had forgotten that the song was contemporaneous and not of my childhood - such is the egotism of the very young. A Robin Hood in his day, James' victims were usually those who exploited and persecuted the farmers of America's midwest: the railroads and the banks (he stole from the rich and he gave to the poor) and to many disenfranchised he was a hero. Unarmed, the once Civil War guerrilla turned desperado was shot from behind by friend Robert Ford, further mythologizing his life, betrayal, and death; shortly after his murder, an unknown balladeer named Billy Gashade wrote the song I watched Nick Cave perform today.

The ballad has been performed by the likes of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen but it was my father who first introduced me to the song. My father used to sing to me - as he did my brother before me - at bedtime, usually American folksongs (although we are Canadian) like Jesse James or the Missouri Waltz or pretty much anything by Burl Ives. That my father sang and read to me as a child is something for which I am profoundly grateful. To this day, when I hear any rendition of All the Pretty Little Horses, I cry.

So today I saw The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and sang the song in my head before, during, and after the film. Today also marks the 8th anniversary of my father's death. He was my hero. And for that I cry too.