Living in the past

by Bente Gallagher/Jennie Bentley


So here we are, and it’s November. Thanksgiving’s coming up, and the suggested topic for the month is things we are thankful for.

Luckily, there are lots of things I can mention. Life, health, health insurance, doctors, modern medicine, my children, their schools, my husband, his job, my book contracts, my computer, air travel, cars, grocery stores, toilet paper with Aloe Vera oil...

I could keep going, but I won’t. Much of it comes down to one thing: modern life. Or maybe more specifically, technology. The technology that allows us to live fairly long, fairly healthy lives of relative ease and comfort.

I had an idea for a historical mystery recently, and as a result I’ve given some thought to living in the past, specifically in the American West some hundred and thirty years ago. I’ve also spent quite some time over the past week watching episodes of a certain old TV-series.

(No, not Gunsmoke. I’m not that old.)

It was called The Young Riders and debuted in 1989. Set in the Wild West in 1860, it dealt with a half dozen or so young men (and a girl in disguise) who delivered mail for the Pony Express.

The Young Riders never did become a huge hit, but it held its own for a few years, and spawned what I can only describe as a huge fangurrrl following. Given the eye candy factor, it wasn’t surprising. It also launched the careers of a few actors who have gone on to do rather well for themselves, including Josh Brolin, who played a young Wild Bill Hickok, and who was my own personal eye candy of choice. To be honest, I still gush when I watch those old episodes, and it’s more than twenty years later.

Each real life Pony Express rider rode up to 75 miles per day, changing horses every 15 miles or so. Today, we can cover 75 miles in a matter of an hour on a nice smooth interstate. Then, it was an all day thing. Sometimes another rider wasn’t available at the next way station, so the first guy would have to keep going. The Pony Express covered the distance between St. Joseph, Missouri and San Francisco, California, in ten days. Riding for the Pony Express was hard, dangerous work; just check out this advertisement:

In 1860, the Pony Express owners, Russell, Majors and Waddell, used the 1860 presidential election as a way to promote the Pony Express and how fast it could deliver the U.S. Mail. On November 7, 1860, a Pony Express rider departed Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory, with the election results. Riders sped along the route, over snow-covered trails, and into Fort Churchill, Nevada Territory, and from there California’s newspapers received word of Lincoln’s election only seven days and seventeen hours after the East Coast papers, an unrivaled feat at the time.

Earlier this week, there were elections held in the here and now. I don’t know about you guys, but in my house, the TV stayed on and hubby got the news as the votes were tallied. Could you imagine waiting seven days and seventeen hours to find out who won?

So let’s hear it for modern technology, shall we? News at our fingertips... the ability to pick up the telephone and talk to someone halfway across the country, or halfway across the world, at the press of a few buttons, and from the car yet!... not to mention the ability to see episodes of my favorite TV show twenty years after it went off the air just by signing up for a free trial with Netflix!

So what's your favorite piece of newfangled technology? I have to admit to being rather partial to air conditioning myself, although I don't honestly see how I'd be able to do without any of it. I wouldn’t last a week in the Old West, and today, I’m thankful I don’t have to!