Westerns on My Mind

My story is no different than that of many others who grew up with normal hearing in the 1950s and 1960s and became deaf as adults. As a kid I watched television—a lot of it—with family or friends in the living room. Back then I could hear, and I laughed or said “Omigod!” during shows at the same time as everybody else. TV was a vast wasteland perhaps, but also the quintessential American experience, a shared experience that I took part in fully.

It seems utterly impossible today but a good number of the shows I watched were Westerns. And I wasn’t the only one watching: Almost 50 different Westerns appeared on TV during the 50’s and 60’s; for years Gunsmoke and Bonanza dominated the weekly Nielsen ratings. There were only three major commercial networks then and people pretty much watched the same shows. If you’re my age, male, and don’t know who Pa Cartwright is, you might as well be from Mars.

This common cultural heritage was impressed upon me a few months ago during an email exchange with John, a late-deafened friend in my age bracket. The topic was his crappy golf game and he said in exasperation that he’d reached the end of his rope and it was time to take the 3:10 to Yuma—in other words, in the parlance of the movie of that name, put an end to things. I emailed him back, typing simply: “Johnny Yuma was a rebel.” His response: “He roamed through the West.” Me: “Did Johnny Yu-MAA, the rebel.” John: “He wandered alone.”

Those lines form the chorus of the theme song of The Rebel, a TV Western from our youth. The song was sung by the legendary Johnny Cash in his trademark languid way, and after evoking it in our emails John and I couldn’t get the song out of our heads for hours—okay, days. Increasingly obsessed, I found a video on YouTube of Johnny Cash performing the song live. John found another. Then we began digging up the themes of other immortal (to us) Westerns: Maverick (“Riverboat, ring your bell….Fare thee well, Annabelle…Luck is the lady that he loves the best…”), Have Gun Will Travel “(Paladin, Paladin, where do you RO-oam?.... Paladin, Paladin, far far from ho-ome.”), Rawhide (“Rollin', rollin', rollin', Though the streams are swollen, Keep them doggies rollin', Rawhide!”)…the list went on. And here it is months later and the songs continue to carousel through my head when I should be pondering how to find a full-time job with benefits. I’m about ready to check out the train schedule to Yuma myself.

All of this means absolutely nothing to most of you, but in a way that’s the point. Broadcast media—in this case, the theme songs of television shows—can uniquely frame and cement personal relationships. John and I would be great friends even if I’d watched Petticoat Junction instead of Death Valley Days and Wagon Train, but the fact that we both devoutly watched and, especially, listened to these TV shows before deafness came along adds another dimension to our friendship.

The 1970s and early 1980s were my own private wasteland years, when I struggled ignobly with deafness. Shame, denial, withdrawal, and fear were some of the self-directed arrows in my quiver of dejection. The lack or scarcity of television captioning during that period contributed to my sense of isolation, although I didn’t realize how acutely until much later.

Some necessary background: During the mid-1970s Saturday Night Live became a hit television show, actually a cultural phenomenon. The show gave impetus to weekend parties. On Saturday nights, friends gathered for drinks and banter and to watch the show. At least my friends did. As airtime approached they’d all position themselves amphitheater-style in front of the TV set. Trying to preserve my status as a fake hearing person at the time, I stood at the back of the room so nobody could see I wasn’t enjoying the comedy sketches, which I couldn’t hear. I’d try to will the hands of my watch to midnight, when the show ended. Needless to say, this wasn’t a high point in my life.

Flash forward to about 1990. I’m married now and my wife Karina notices that an early Saturday Night with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi was being aired.

“Oh, let’s watch it!” she says.

“Nah,” I shrug.

“Why not, Guillermo?” she says. “John Belushi!”

“I won’t understand it, for one thing.”

“But it’s captioned.”

“It’s captioned?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Okay. I guess.”

So we put the show on. About ten minutes into it, Karina throws back her head in laughter and looks at me. And… I’m crying. Megatears coursing down my cheeks.

“What’s the matter, Guillermo?!” she says.

“I don’t know. I’m crying.”

“I see that. But why?”

“I don’t know. Something…I don’t know.”

But I did know. It was the specter of Saturday nights past, when I stood at the margins of parties, full of angst and foreboding. When that particular show first aired, I probably hadn’t understood a word. And now there were captions. Belushi, yes; Aykroyd, yes: they’re funny. My tears flowed from a mishmash of sudden, unexpected feelings: distress, relief, resentment, gratitude.

That night is a moment frozen in time. I never again reacted so primally to captioning on television. Today, my attitude is probably just like yours: I expect perfection and am annoyed by recurring typos or when captioning lags behind. And when there are no captions at all, I get upset and may raise a fuss.

But I’m not likely to forget how fundamental captioning is to my sense of wholeness, community, and belonging. I watch television with my hearing family and friends, and we laugh and say “Omigod!” at approximately the same time. Maybe watching TV together is no longer a quintessential American experience (only Facebook is), but it’s still a cherished one. And when Clint Eastwood reprises his breakthrough role as Rowdy Yates in Rawhide I’ll be able to understand him, just like old times. Not that I’ll actually watch the show: I’m done with Westerns. Done. Now how do I get all those theme songs out of my head?

“...Natchez to New Orleans....Livin’ on jacks and queens....Maverick is a legend of the Wessst....”