Opie/Cowboys and Indians

[Foofoogal]

Finding myself hanging out in Mayberry with the state of affairs recently. I need huge doses of innocent nostalgia as I find it helps me. [huh] (my drug of choice or escapism.)lol
As I am old enough to remember little boys enthralled with cowboys and indians and wearing stock apparel of holster and gun this got me to thinking.
On our local tv stations we have a local commercial for a treated product called Yellawood. The commercials are a series that involve a cowboy and his sidekicks on horses saving the day. Very goofy but I find myself waiting for them I am so desperate for nostalgia.
I also was watching the interview by Katie Couric of the pilot who landed the plane in the Hudson recently and his comment on people needing a hero desperately with all the bad economy news.
So back to Opie. I know the flap about guns and stuff but since cowboys and indians play is about the good guy vs bad guy (or used to be anyway) wouldn't this be a prime time for the cowboy and indians and Westerns genre in general to make a huge comeback?
Early and I have not had much coffee so be gentle.

 

[Feraud]

I cringe thinking about what the updated version of cowboys and indians would be.

 

[David Conwill]

I cringe thinking about what the updated version of cowboys and indians would be.

Insurgents and GIs?

I think the myth of the west has been too severely debunked for cowboys and indians to ever come back as kids play. In fact, the world may have gotten just too cynical for anything of that nature to make a comeback, it's too hard to find shades of gray where we used to see black and white.

And where there is black and white, the black is too dark and the white not white enough for any thinking parent to really encourage his kids to play that way.

OTOH, they are just kids and sometimes its better to let them play in black and white and find out about the gray when they get older.

-Dave

 

[scotrace]

foofoogal, go back through the last several pages of Shorpy.com and there is a great photo of boys in their cool war bonnets.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Do kids even play like that anymore? I saw a bunch of kids grow up in my neighborhood over the past ten years, and don't remember ever seeing them do good guy-bad guy games. Not to say there wasn't street play, but it was more in the form of games where there was a win-lose/score points component than free-form fantasy.

Which brings up the next question -- if not, why not? Could it be that the whole idea of selling pre-packaged fantasies to kids has backfired and obliterated their ability to make things up on their own?

There wasn't much cowboy-and-indian play in my neighborhood during my own childhood --the kid culture revolved around baseball more than anything else. But you did occasionally see kids skulking in the bushes playing army or running around with towels around their neck playing super-hero. Nowadays you rarely, if ever, see anything like that -- maybe because whatever the average kid could improvise couldn't compare with the slickly processed fantasy of a video game. Food for thought, anyway.

 

[Paisley]

Cops and robbers?

 

[Foofoogal]

Did they play cowboys and indians naturally or because of the westerns on tv. With the need for a hero I would think it would play well with children.
I wish anyway.
Is there any heros in cartoons now?

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2265719
this is back after 35 years. why not cowboys and indians?
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2314102
Close. No toy gun though. Quite a few cowboy items it seems even so maybe. I say it is ripe for this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3qvVvhn7Us

 

[Big Man]

Do kids even play like that anymore? ...

I don't know about other kids, but my grandchildren sure do. they "ride horses" and "shoot guns" with nothing more than a stick - and have a lot of fun doing it. :eusa_clap

 

[scotrace]

I remember playing cowboys and indians, and modeling some of it after what we saw on Bonanza or Gunsmoke. We also played an awful lot of Star Trek indors when it was too icky to go out after homework.
We also played war. Combat was great for that. And we always played Germans vs Americans. Woe to the kid who got captured by the Germans...
Germans who got caught got pretend cigarettes and chocolate bars. Americans who were captured got the "oops, tripped ya" treatment.

Also: "Jimmy, you can't get up! You're dead!"
"But it's dinner time and my mom'll kill me if I'm late."
"Oh, real tough Nazi you turn out to be, scared of yer m o m m y... now lay down!"

There was a big hill with a thick forest that covered acres nearby when I was small - C&I there. Later there was a later forest of smaller acreage - for A&G.

We used cap pistols without caps, as i remember (who had time to load up those red paper caps when you're shooting from the back of an imaginary horse?) so we had to make the gunfire sound ourselves. I was best at replicating machine gun fire. lol
We got very muddy and pooped out in any case.

All that imaginative play was very beneficial. I still like to use my imagination when I go out to play!

 

[Spitfire]

It's not called cowboys and indians anymore. And it's not kids.
It's called reenacting.
And the kids are inside playing computers.

 

[carouselvic]

Many a year a cowboy, and I ain't stepped in any yet.

 

[Warbaby]

When I was of the age to be playing Cowboys & Indians we lived in Tombstone, Arizona which was thoroughly steeped in cowboy lore, but somewhat lacking in Indians. We usually played Cowboys & Cowboys - one side was good cowboys, the other was the Bad Guys. Indians never seemed to figure into it. The play usually degenerated into a rock fight wherein the two groups would throw rocks at each other until one kid got hit hard enough to go home crying. Seemed like fun at the time...

I don't think today's kids have enough imagination to play at the things kids used to. And if they did attempt Cowboys & Indians their parents would have a fit because it would be so politically incorrect. I feel kind of sorry for modern kids, most of whom will never experience a good rock fight.

 

[DutchIndo]

Playing Cowboys and Indians could not be done today. Too many sensitivities someone would bound to be offended.

 

[carouselvic]

To add a sense of realism to our fights my brothers and I used BB guns. No shooting above the waist. My parents did not know we did this. Surprisingly we all kept our eye sight. It would sure raise a welt, even through jeans. Not smart at all.

 

[carter]

Those were the good old days.

We used BB guns as well. We'd camp in a backyard somewhere in the neighborhood and the cowboys were in the tent. The Indians circled the tent and a gun battle ensued. I still have a scar just below my left eyebrow where my brother nearly shot my eye out.

We aslo built snow forts and defended them in winter, swam in the river that we were expressly forbidden to go near, and searched for treasure in the dump between the American Safety Razor factory and the river. It's a wonder we survived.

 

[DutchIndo]

BB guns were for the sparrows in my neighborhood. We had huge Orange fights in the Orange Groves here ( Orange County CA ) sadly all the Orange Groves are gone. Dirt clod fights were the greatest until someone got a clod in the mouth. He'd end up crying to his Mom and we'd all hide. My friend used to dress up dummies and throw them out on the streets at night. They would hide and watch the headlights dip and swerve. They would snicker when they heard the drivers cussing. Yes we did some stupid stuff when we were young.

 

[carter]

It's a good thing my dad never caught us!

Yes we did some stupid stuff when we were young.

Don't even ask me about bottle rockets on county roads on Halloween!

 

[KY Gentleman]

We played cowboys and indians, cops and robbers, etc. And we played outside without helmets and elbow pads too!
I see so many kids nowadays that park it in front of the TV or computer for hours on end. In my neighborhood you don't even SEE kids playing outside.
They don't know what they're missing!

 

[Cody Pendant]

The death of Cowboys and Indians

I was just discussing this topic with friends the other day. I think it died out because of changing social norms. From what i see, parents can't let there children run around the neighborhood anymore. Back in the day I would leave the house on Saturday morning and might not be back till diner at 5M. I went to my friends houses and rode bikes in a 4 or 5 mile area. A visit to the adult neighbors was common, just knock on the back door, Come on in! Won't find too many doors unlocked today, or a welcome. Spent many a great hour with the old timers in my neighborhood. A baseball game at the vacant lot was a regular occurrence and was took only a few minutes to organize, and no cell phones, just a holler and it spread through the block in no time. The local park actually had playground equipment that today would be considered "dangerous" and even had various ball's, bats, rackets and such to check out from attendants in the summer.
Now you have to check the Internet for the latest updates to the sex offender lists in your block and no one dares to talk to the neighbors anymore. Play at a park unsupervised anymore, noway. Walk to school, nada. Can't let the kids out of sight nowadays.
A child's world has gotten so much smaller, I hope one day they will get to experience a friendlier, freer time as I did.

 

[Spitfire]

We have nothin to fear but fear itself.

It's a truely sad picture you are presenting Cody Pendant.
I aint saying it's not true in US. But still it's saddening that kids can't run about anymore.
Luckily this atmosphere of fear has not spread over here.
Kids are still playing soccer in the parks here. They still bike unattended to school every morning. And they still play bad guys and good guys in the backyards. Some of them, that is.
The computergames and TV are winning more and more over to the couch.