Wild Wild West

Hubby and I went to dinner tonight with some friends of ours. Afterwards, neither of us felt like running but we did decide to take a walk instead. This was great because we got to talk more than we do when we are running, and I notice a lot of things around my usual running route that I don't normally notice as I'm running past.

As we were walking, a guy ran past us, rather quickly. Great form, great pace, great runner. I laughed and mentioned to Hubby "He runs faster than me" with a fake pout lol. Hubby agreed that the guy also ran faster than him. I then mentioned that I wouldn't feel safe running at that time of night alone. Perhaps it is because I am a woman, or perhaps it is that I know I'm not that great of a runner and therefor wouldn't be able to outrun any would-be attackers. Hubby again agreed and mentioned that the guy looked like he was in pretty good shape and could probably take one attacker then sprint off. The problem would be that he would then have to change his running route because people nowadays can't just admit they have been bested and leave it alone, they now wait with a gun and extract a ridiculous pay-back.

This lead to a discussion about how similar life today is with live in the Wild West. I had never thought about that before. We always think about days gone by as being simpler, easier, more moral life...but if you really stop and think, we aren't far from life in the wild wild west.

Everyone seems to own a gun. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I have a gun, my husband has several and we firmly believe in the right to bear arms. Besides, if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have them, right? But there is similarity number one, anyone who wants a gun can easily get one.

The second similarity is that people will shoot you to save their honor. If you called someone a cheat in the wild west, they would most likely at the very least start a bar fight and proceed to beating the crap out of you or at the worst shoot you. If they caught you cheating, they would more than likely skip the bar fight and go right to the shooting. You were rude to my woman...BANG. You stole my horse...BANG. You run off with my daughter...BANG. Not much different from today, or at least it's getting there. People don't leave well enough alone and they can't stand to think that they were dissed or bettered in some way. Tit for tat, round and round we go, and no one wins. Too many people try to take the law into their own hands or worse yet, retaliate in the worst way when their feelings are hurt.