TIME TRAVEL VERSION @CIRCA 1848

The Day I Claimed a Western Town – A Time Travel Story That’s Not to Be Believed. (But it’s great fun pretending.)

I don’t know it happened: it just did. One minute I was out in my Topanga Canyon garden picking cherry tomatoes—waiting for the plumber to show up to fix those pesky pipes. The next thing I knew I was standing on a dusty street of an old western town. 

As I stood there trying to get my bearings, a gust of wind blew up part of a tattered newspaper, landing right at my feet. It was called The Californian. The date: 1848. As if that wasn’t jarring enough, the headline read: “Gold Discovered! Sutter Mills Inundated by Speculators.” (Later I would learn this was the The Californian’s last issue. It seems their staff had jumped ship to join all the other speculators converging from all parts of the globe in search of fame and fortune. Well, fortune anyway.)

Surprisingly, I wasn’t shocked by any of this. After all, I had watched every Western ever made—including every neo-Western, Spaghetti Western and Sci-Fi Western. Stewart, Cooper, and Eastwood were my regular dinner guests as in true divorced-woman fashion, I found my only suitable male companions in the make-believe world. Mine just happened to be cowboys.

So there I was.  It took about a day to acclimate to my surroundings.  That’s about 10 years as the time traveling crow goes.

As the sun began to set towards the end of my first day and I had finished placing my last bet at the poker table (I had to give myself at least one vice), I decided that this was my town. I owned it: The saloon, the bank, the blacksmith’s shop, the hotel, the dry goods store. I bought it all. (Amazing what 21st-century pocket change can get you.) The only exception was the little country church at the edge of town. That was God’s house. And it welcomed all. “Be ye saint or sinner,” the self-effacing pastor would say like clockwork, “you are welcome here the same … just come as you are, and leave forever changed.” I never forgot those words. It came to define this town.

By my second day, I had run my town for ten years, during which time I got engaged to a cattle rancher by the name of Clint Cooper who also happened to be the local sheriff. (And no, the irony of his name was not lost on me.) By necessity, people in those days wore many Stetsons.

I loved my new life, or old life, depending on how one looks at it. In this town, that I would come to possess as surely as it would possess me, the only technology was the telegraph, and the same person who shoed your horse on Monday tried to save your soul on Sunday.

It was a time and place where you knew who you could trust just by the look in their eye, and you could ride for days on end under a vast blue sky … with nary a building or person in sight.

Where outlaws and lawmen knew where they stood, and rough-and-tumble gold diggers played their dangerous game in staking their claim.

What was respectable was clear: you were either that kind or the other, and at least half the young children were lost to every father and mother.

While hustlers hawked snake oil, honest men would toil. And as young mothers read the Good Book to their children by lamplight, others were forced to make their living in the night, pleasing  the flesh of mayors and sheriffs, gun slingers and ranch hands. And even a preacher or two.

In the dark, every man looked the same, and every woman took the blame.

By my third day of living in Western Town, I had lived an entire lifetime, After getting married and havin’ a few youngins’ I watched my husband get shot down in cold blood by a no-good, double-dealin’ drifter.

Not long after, in my quest for justice, I was elected sheriff, replacing my husband. No one seemed to have a problem electing a woman. Besides, I was the best shot in town. Even Joaquin Murrieta, the famous bandit of the Gold-Rush era, feared me. Or so they tell me.

It was an exciting life … until that existence abruptly ended and I woke up in present- day LA.  I’m still getting adjusted.

I missed it all. No more tapping my toes to the town fiddler’s tune, or breaking up fist fights in the saloon or looking on as outlaws drew on each other at high noon. Most of all, a husband to keep me warm at night. No one I met in this life—either before or since—has came close to him. As the saying goes, “They don’t make them like they used to.” That’s for darn sure.

As an inconsequential sidenote, the plumber never did show up—even after I had rescheduled.  I would have drawn on him, but I think that might have been frowned upon in modern-day Topanga Caynon (Besides, I had left my Colt Dragoon back in town.) That’s what happens in real life when you’re the sheriff of nothing. 

Laying alone in my bed at night, I think about my Western town and my other life. It may seem odd, but I don’t ever wonder what happened to my children. That’s probably because on some level I knew my time there was limited, and maybe not even real. Perhaps the whole time I was living a holodeck-generated existence. I don’t really know, and I don’t really care.

All I know is my time there served its purpose…offering me a blessed respite from the soulless modernity I’ve been living these past decades. Real or imagined, all that’s left now of my western town are the memories …”the  good, the bad and the ugly” as my husband Clint used to say.

And that, my friends, is as good a note as any on which to end this Western time travel story. Because what is travel if, along with the 10 best things to do and see, it’s not about visiting those deep recesses of our imagination where ancient memories become mysteriously unearthed by the primal force of our deepest longings.

When in Rome, become an ancient Roman. That’s my travel philosophy and I’m sticking to it. 

Now for the real story of this small California western town…

THE REAL STORY – @CIRCA PRESENT DAY

The Day I Claimed a Western Town: Fake, but fun. 

“Down in the west Texas town of El Paso, I met Katrina, a girl that I love.”

That line from the memorable Marty Robbins song, “El Paso,” has stuck with me since I was a teen—in a “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” sort of way.

Granted, the latter song, crooned by breathy singer-songwriter Paula Cole, was sung with tongue planted firmly in cheek; nonetheless, that doesn’t negate the still-begging-for-an-answer question that’s secretly on every woman’s mind: “So, where have all the cowboys gone?”

I think I wanted to be Marty’s Katrina … the girl that he loved. I wanted to be discovered in a small Texas town, doing whatever cowgirls do until the day the rodeo and its leading wranglin’ man came to town. Although I wasn’t exactly sure what a cowgirl was, and most likely never would—owing to the fact that I was a city slicker from San Francisco where cowgirls were definitely in short supply.

Ree’s Peas (Like Bee’s Knees, Only Better)

I was, and still am, at a loss to find that cowboy. But I’m quite sure it doesn’t involve cruising cowboy dating sites, hanging out at feed stores, or placing bids on bulls at a livestock auction. Even Ree Drummond, the famous blogger and star of the hit show, Pioneer Woman, never set out to corral her no frills, gen-u-ine, rootin’ tootin,’ boot-kickin, cow ropin’ cowboy. But find him she did, or rather, he found her—in a “smokey bar” in Oklahoma City, as the story goes.

Ree Drummond’s urban-sophisticate-turned-pie-making-ranch-wife story clearly has its romantic appeal, as is evidenced by Ree’s wildly successful blog where baking and craft-making seems to be the mainstay of her domestic life on the plains. This is where my Marlboro Man fantasy ends.  If whipping up a cobbler and crafting homey little things on a semi-regular basis is part of the “come hither” package for wrangling a weathered Levi-wearin’ ranchman, I might as well pack it up now and call it a day.

Lady of the Ranch

With homemaking skills clearly lacking, this leaves me with only one lady-of-the-ranch role model that I can relate to—the regal, yet no-nonsense, character of Clara Allen in everyone’s favorite Western miniseries, Lonesome Dove. Who can forget the look of the indomitable Anjelica Huston standing by the wooden gate of her Wyoming spread, duly resplendent in her super-cool cowgirl hat, oversized white puffy sleeved blouse, wide tribal belt and full-on femme prairie skirt with badass boots? It wasn’t just her attire, it was her “I own it, troubles and all” stance.

It was a sight that made every cowboy west of the Mississippi take one look at her, whistle under his breath, and say to himself, “Now, that’s a handsome lookin’ woman.”

But that was fantasy and this is real life. So the best I could do this Tuesday past was to grab my feisty New York friend/Pilates instructor and head on over to LA’s best imitation of the west Texas town of El Paso, channeling my inner Clara. As it turns out, it was easy to do, given the fact that my friend and I were the only ones there.

Thankfully, Western Town, the faux western film town where TV shows such as Westworld (still filming), Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, M*A*S*H and others were filmed, was remarkably devoid of those dreaded tourists (who always have a way of shattering the illusion). This means that I was completely free to climb into my rocket-fueled covered wagon (the DeLorean was taken) and head back to the future, circa 1800s California.

Before leaving for Western Town, I tried as best I could to dress the part, grabbing whatever combo I could from both my daughter’s wardrobe and mine. Trouble is, I couldn’t find my quasi-cowboy boots. So deciding that anything less than the real deal would look just plain sad, I went barefoot for most of my shots. Somehow it all worked—sort of. It was boho, with a Western feel.

No need to embellish. My photos of Western town speak for themselves.  It’s a TV and movie set, nothing more and nothing less. No tacky gift shops, not coffee mugs with the faces of Leo Carillo (Cisco Kid, 1950 TV series) Bradley Cooper (American Sniper) Anthony Hopkins (Westworld) or Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn Medicine Women) plastered on them.   Nope—not much to do there other than what I had already done which was time travel there in my gloriously vivid imagination.  

Who knows? Maybe I’ve inspired you to do the same.  Try it! Sure, it’s fake.  But it’s fun.  And isn’t that what travel should be?

Note: Since this time I wrote this story, this beloved faux-Western town (Paramount Ranch) was destroyed by the Malibu fires. The only structure that survived was, miraculously, the church. Maybe that’s because unlike some other men of the cloth, the good pastor of the 1848 Western Town never did visit any of those ladies of the night. 

The Where and

 

About Western Town

Locale: Western Town, Paramount Ranch, Santa Monica Mountains (Agoura Hills)

What Is It: A Western-themed film set that’s part of Paramount Ranch located in the Santa Monica Mountains. The show Westworld is currently being filmed there, and formerly Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, The Mentalist, Weeds, and Hulu’s Quickdraw (2013-2014).

Owned By: Originally purchased by Paramount Studios in 1927, the ranch has changed ownership numerous times. It’s now owned by the National Parks Service.

What To Do There: Walk, hike and take photos, though a permit is required if photos are used for commercial purposes.
Hours of Operation: 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM
Admission: Free

Parking: Ample

For more information: Visit National Park website.