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Twelve years from last night I went to bed thinking I might not wake up the next morning. The imagination of children knows no bounds. When I was in grade school I used to pretend I was a cowboy on the playground. Most of my friends wanted to play Warrior Cats or Ninjago but I was more into cowboys.

We would play a tag-you’re-out type game where one team was Cowboys and the other was Police, and the ol cowpokes had to try and get through the lawmen’s defensive line. Later, approaching middle school, when children grow both edgier and more conscious of current events, it transformed into “border patrol.” Safe to say I didn’t enjoy it as much as cowboys.

The imagery of cowboys I still adore, although now with more awareness of what they represent in American media. My dad has told me that, when he was a kid, you couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing some sort of white-clad cowboy chasing down natives, or runaway slaves, or a brown-skinned bandito. I wonder what he would’ve thought if he saw me playing cowboys at school.

Today you don’t see nearly as many cowboys, and much less of the “white savior” westerns from the mid-century. It seems to me, the old westerns which have stuck in public consciousness the longest are about the anti heroes, whether they be bounty hunters, or vengeful gunfighters, or criminals on the run (“Honor” circle-jerks like Dances With Wolves notwithstanding).

Cowboy Nights are my kind of nights. I like to get drunk, put on an old western, and get into it. I like to watch a feel-good movie every now and then. I really like the idea of roamers on horseback, under the big desert sun. And I love to hoot and holler (At a respectable volume).

Yes, tonight is definitely a Cowboy Night.