By Julie Carter
It is a song not audible and yet it pierces the heart of men in every walk of life.
Like the music of the mythological being, the siren's song of the West pulls, tugs and creates within men an unexplainable desire.
It calls them to a way of life in place where renewed hope springs eternal and they believe for a better life in a less cluttered world.
The sirens of Greek mythology lived on a rocky island in the middle of the sea and sang melodies so beautiful that sailors passing by could not resist getting closer to them.
Following the sound of the music, the sailors would steer their boats towards them or jump in the water to get closer - both ending in disaster on the rocks.
Horace Greeley, has been credited for popularizing, 150 years ago, the idea of "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." Today, the West is still a magnet to men and women of all ages.
A study of Western culture revealed three out of five men and nearly half of women would like to be cowboys for at least a day. Many have opted for complete lifestyle changes.
In droves, they have packed up their lives and moved to the West, finding a place in the open spaces much like the 100 years of homesteaders.
The 2000 census showed eight of the ten fastest growing states are in the West, led by Nevada.
Two weeks ago, 1,200 Michigan residents stood in long lines eager to head for Wyoming's rugged, cold terrain answering a call to a job fair.
The sheer numbers dictate that not everybody can be a cowboy. But a good number will take on the trappings of the trade, buy a 40-acre ranchette, and put a rocking chair on the wrap-around porch to watch the sun set over a small barn that houses two horses, a 4-wheeler and a couple of llamas.
It is a new West and is clearly an amalgamation of the many phases of an evolving genre.
While the West does not own the cowboy, it is the cowboy that epitomizes the West in the minds of those that seek him.
Some men are born to ride and some men were born to sit in traffic. Some come to live in the West as it is now with a more modern version of the cowboy wearing sponsorship tags on his shirt and making a few hundred thousand dollars a year riding bulls or roping calves in the rodeos.
It is a West where cattle are still king and four door pickups and aluminum trailers ferry the cowboy crew miles across ranches, counties and states - a West where ranchers hang on to an ever-changing way of life necessitating better practices in order to stay on the land.
There are those who come to feed their soul from the history created by those who came west to grow with a new country.
These were men who rode hard, shot straight and died young. Their ghosts walk the boardwalks of old towns in western territories and call to a breed of modern man who find themselves living a century past their time.
While the siren of the West may not lure man to disaster, the man that heeds the call will find today's cowboy life is not in the clothes he wears or the substance of his dreams.
To this day I have not ever seen the visiting pilgrim come to the ranch, dressed out in his version of cowboy clothes, begging the boss to let him drive the feed pickup.
Now there is a sign of a complete lack of understanding about how the West is really won in this new millennium.
© Julie Carter 2006
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