Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.You can't tell the good guys by their white hats anymore by J. G. Fabiano When I was young I used to sit in front of my parents' black and white television set every Saturday morning to watch my favorite cowboy shows. I would get up an hour earlier in order to dress up in my favorite cowboy suit that consisted of an authentic Gene Autry red flannel cowboy shirt, `Have Gun Will Travel' pants, which flared out in order to allow my `Gunsmoke' cowboy boots to be put on easily and, of course, my white Roy Rogers cowboy hat. Around my waist I strapped my shiny white holster that held a shiny chrome cap-gun with a white plastic handle that I always kept clean and shiny. All good guys had guns that were clean and shiny. Back then, color was not as important because you could tell the good guys from the bad guys by the hat they wore. If they wore a white hat they represented truth, justice and the American way. If they wore a black hat they represented the dregs of society, the kind of person you would never want to become. My life was pretty well set, in that I knew I would always be the guy wearing the white hat because my parents brought me up with the notion that good always overcame evil. When I reached my early teenage years it was still easy to differentiate between what was good and what was evil. During the `Camelot' era of John and Jackie Kennedy in the White House the good guys all wore a white shirt with a black string tie. The white shirt represented purity and how the youth of America would make the world a better place. The first time my generation started to question what was right and what was wrong was that late November day in 1963 when `Camelot' died. I remember exactly where I was, what I was doing, and whom I was with. At first I believed the government would find out who and why this tragedy took place. The Warren Report was supposed to do just that but as soon as it came out people started to question its authenticity. I could not understand how anyone could question people who obviously represented truth and the American way. Those doing the questioning probably wore black hats. 1968 was a big year for my generation. The war in Viet Nam was not going well and I could not understand why because we were told if we didn't stop the Communists from going into Viet Nam they would spread their evil ways throughout Southeast Asia, then into Australia and then into the rest of the world. I remember this doctrine being called: `The Domino Effect.' How could anyone not believe it when it was coming from our government which consisted of people who were good and probably all wore white hats when they were little boys? Two more of my heroes died that year. Robert Kennedy was killed in California right after it seemed certain that he would be our next President. As blood poured from his head I noticed he was wearing a white shirt. How could it be any other way? Martin Luther King was also killed that year and, to this day, I am ashamed to admit that I did not feel the same loss as I did when the Kennedy’s were killed and maybe that was because he was black but, I do remember he wore a white shirt so I knew he was one of the good guys. The turbulent years of the early seventies brought images of flagged-draped coffins coming home from Viet Nam. I remember watching television with my friends at school wishing color was never introduced because issues that could no longer be understood in terms of black and white confused me. I wanted somebody to ride out onto the national stage on a white stallion and wearing a white hat. Somebody did. His name was Richard Nixon. The war ended like I thought no war was supposed to end. How could any nation lose when it represented all that was good? The seventies were a tough time because that was when we stopped believing in ourselves but then another great American rode into our lives with a history that represented the triumph of good over evil. His name was Ronald Reagan and I remember watching him on television wearing a white shirt with his sleeves rolled up representing a sort of can-do optimism that people desperately wanted to feel again. He did the same thing in his movies so it was clear to me at the time that fantasy and reality were one and the same thing. At that time some unknown American hockey players won the battle of good over evil on a clean white sheet of ice. We did the impossible but why not? Good always triumphed in the end. For the next 21 years people of my generation pretty much had things go their way. We grew up, had families of our own, lived in fine homes and were secure once again in the knowledge that our country represented everything that was good in the world. We once again wore the white hats in a world that was filled with guys who wore black hats. Then came September 11. We still represented good but bad seemed to have suddenly grown more powerful than we ever thought possible. We were attacked, innocent men, women and children died and it was up to us to do something about it. Our new President told us we would go to war with the people who dared to do this to us. We attacked Afghanistan with the support of the world and had the terrorists by their throats. Good would once again triumph over evil. The people who represented the white shirts would once again triumph. How could it be any other way? But, then Iraq happened. I can honestly say that I have no idea why we are there today. We were told about weapons of mass destruction and a government that represented the type of terrorism that threatened the security of the world. We were told we had to make the world safe for democracy but then we found out that the reason we went there was based on false information. Some said it was based on lies but, how could a government lie when it was supposed to represent all that was good in the world? Today I find myself in front of my big screen; high definition color TV set watching the news. Instead of a cowboy suit I usually have on a pair of shorts and T-shirt advertising something I would never buy. I no longer brandish a shiny cap-gun but a TV remote so I can scan all the reports of the wars underway throughout the world. I am once again waiting for someone wearing a white hat to ride up on a white horse because that is the way it was done in the past. That is the way it is supposed to be. I miss my old black and white television set because it was easy then to tell the good guys from the bad guys. All you had to do was look at their hats!
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