There was this deep voice, ragged piercing stare, and huge hands of his that when he sat behind his desk, leaned forward and asked you questions, you knew he was in control of the situation.
Everything was going to be alright. Walt was on the job.
"I'm 911," he once said.
His limited extended family ran the gamut across gender, race and age. His best friend was the Indian bar tender at he town's watering hole. " Walt" he called him.
Walt's past haunted him and it wasn't a secret, wife murdered down south in Denver, daughter - a pretty little woman - growing closer to him. Eventually quiet close as the story went on.
Although he packed a six gun, rarely used, Longmire's signature was a long rifle, a tradition Winchester 30-30. He was never without it. Occasionally, he hit what he was aiming for.
Like John Wayne, he was big and powerful, yet gentle, quiet and in control. His temper rarely flared but when it did, furniture flew. His audience was faithful, every week, missing dinner, appointments, school plays, what - not, to catch Longmire.
Like John Wayne, Walt Longmire was teaching a new generation of American Men how to act like men, something they seemed to have forgotten in recent years, a softening in the culture. A sense that we are weakening in our resolve.
Let's just say the backers of LONG
MIRE grew weak in the knees. Money, ratings, reputation, something transitory this way comes. We'll give them that, won't we? BUT, THERE ARE LARGER THING IN LIFE THAN JUST MONEY. There are moral principles, truth character, country. And occasionally, power meisters see behind the pale, like the owners of Star Trek and they keep on funding it until it catches on.
And now, eons later, we still celebrate the character and culture of that artistic and character building venture out of Hollywood, don't we?
Don't we?
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