Growing up, my parents raised me on what I consider to be the core of human experience and what has ultimately shaped me into the person I am today: comedy albums (Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy), good music (my fondest memories were Meat Loaf on an 8-track, along with the typical 70’s and 80’s funk and pop classics), Georgia football, and westerns.

To be fair, my parents believed I was going to experience and use profanity anyway, so they didn’t shy away from my exposure to blue comedy or music, and when I grew old enough to realize what Paradise by the Dashboard Light really was about, color me red in the face but tickled at the same time. They were (and are) spirited Bulldawg fans, with my mom being the perpetual optimist while dad is the one to quickly leave after the first opponent’s score, cussing and on to something else like cutting grass. Needless to say, that profanity piece was in heavy use during Saturday afternoon listening and viewing, by all involved.

Westerns, though, were different. I started with the typical Sunday afternoon westerns on TBS, usually watching at my granddad’s place the old music-less black and whites where the good guy always won and the soundtrack was fat with static and canned voices. I evolved into the color Westerns, most notably our passion for watching Rio Bravo on repeat through most of my youth, which was John Ford’s lengthy incorporation of traditional Western hero with some cultural infusion of a pop star and catchy, sing-along tunes.

As I got older, Dad decided it was time for me to see a more refined, slightly darker western genre. From Spaghetti Westerns of The Good, The Bad, The Ugly to Once Upon a Time in the West. Watching westerns with a genesis story that also followed a narrative of the expansion of industrial elements leading to the extinction of the Western frontier, the genre pivoted. The good guys were often not-to so-good, just the lesser of two evils. Sometimes the hero was actually the bad guy, but the conditions made him that way. Sometimes the good guy lost. The archetype hero of the traditional western was dead. It was around this time that Dad finally introduced me to Sam Peckinpah.

Ride the High Country was a relatively tame introduction, but with some explanation of it being a story of the masculine experience of growing old and looking for ways to salvage a life from the mistakes of the past. “All I want is to enter my house justified” became an ethos shared between the two of us and something that we mutually agreed will be etched on a stone where our former selves rest when that time comes.

From there, we watched The Wild Bunch, and, eventually, what we consider to be our favorite western of all time, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. It was from this classic that Knocking On Heaven’s Door was born, part of an original soundtrack authored by Bob Dylan, who starred as Alias in the movie alongside Kris Kristofferson and James Coburn (note – scene from the movie with the song, which starts around the 1:30 mark, contains violence. If you know of Sam Peckinpah, that should come as no surprise):

Similar to the other two Peckinpah works I mentioned, the story (which many are familiar with) is again a study of the changing face of the American West through the expansion of the railroad system in the early 20th century, with former friends and partners in crime finding themselves on opposite sides of the law. The movie follows the hunt for Billy the Kid, and Pat’s internal struggle with chasing the very essence of who he once was, with the intent of either imprisoning his own spirit of adventure, or killing it. It’s complete with elements that makes a young man or old man alike reflect on life and the decisions that lead you to being 19 or 79, whichever point you’re at in life.

A story about the creation, release, and soon to be re-release of the unedited version can be found here. It’s an interesting read, especially about how the whole crew had to reshoot the entire film, how Peckinpah directed most of it completely inebriated, and even how he came to meet, cast, and have Bob Dylan write a soundtrack for the film. Another sampling of the soundtrack can be heard here, in this famous introduction to the conflict that will exist throughout the movie:

As I grow older, and reflect on friends come and gone, especially knowing I’ve got one lone friend that is a trusted, ride-or-die, that last line really sticks with me.

Holly: “Why don’t you kill him?”

Billy: “Why? He’s my friend”.

Dang, that sticks. A similar line came out of Tombstone, when Doc Holliday famously retorted to Jack Johnson’s question “Friend? Hell I got lots of friends”…to which Doc responds “I don’t”.

My dad texted me the other day and shared the aforementioned article, and we’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of the uncut version, which we will watch again, just as we did when we were younger versions of ourselves. We won’t eat popcorn, or pause, and maybe we’ll have a few beers. We’ll watch from beginning to end, listening and looking for all the nuances of a “greatest” that’s bound to be greater, because that’s what you do when something has as much meaning and relevance to the life of a man and his father as Pat Garrett does to us.

I’m sure I’ll walk away with the same lessons, some new insights, but still resolved to have a line from one of Peckinpah’s works permanently scribed on our future resting place, while Knocking on Heaven’s Door plays our way up into the heavens above, to that great movie theater and resting place in the sky.

Thanks, Dad, for showing me the way of men, for good or for bad. You taught me how to hunt, fish, teach, and live life. To discern between good and evil. The lessons along the way, through film or through truth, remain unalienable to this day. It’s the ultimate lesson, to which I’ve learned to be true to life and reliable for days to come.

Until that day, Dad, as we say. Understood as easily today in unspoken ways as we can only know. I forever love and respect you.

Happy Fathers Day, Dad.

Sean