Roughing It

From Hollywood, the CBS Radio Workshop. This is Samuel Clemens speaking. Word comes to our colony of late residents of the United States that the art form known as the motion picture makes a pretty good thing of bringing the great American West to the attention of current inhabitants who are fortunate enough to live somewhere else.

As I understand it, the movie makers have found three basic ingredients necessary to their presentation of life in the West. Ingredient One, scenery Ingredient Two, a good man in a white stetzen and a bad one with ten gallons of black felt on his head Ingredient Three, a rousing chase over Ingredient One and involving Ingredient Two.

Of course, they add a few refinements now and then, such as the love of mankind for horse kind, don't know what I do without you, broom-till pun, or maybe a battle against the elements. I keep moving, ain't no little thing like a blizzard, a prairie fire and a flood gonna scump me, and sometimes even a female.

Come back when you can, Ranger, and thanks. Now word has reached me that in addition to symphony orchestras, trick horses, and guitar players, they also hire writers just to think up these adult westerns. It seems a little silly to me since I wrote a book some 90 years ago which contains all the literary appertions necessary to make a western as adult as it should be.

These writing fellows can find it in any library. Its title is Roughing It, and its author is yours truly, Samuel Clemens. CBS Radio presents the CBS Radio Workshop dedicated to man's imagination, the theater of the mind.