On Leaving the Sherman Ranch: In Which I Wax Emotional about Jess Harper and Laramie (1959-1963)

It's Legends of Western Cinema Week! This delightful annual blogathon (which you can join HERE) is hosted by Hamlette, Heidi, and Olivia, and is one of my tippy-top favorite blogging events. I had to miss it last year, cuz I was busy, but I'm back. And while in the past I've used every single LoWCW to squeal about The Magnificent Seven (1960)....this year I'm gonna squeal about Laramie (1959-1963).

(Apologies to those of my readers who have already seen this. It's new to the blogosphere, but I actually wrote it a while ago.)

Since the draft of this post is a year old, I have no idea where I got this image.
But for context, Slim (John Smith) is on the left and Jess (Robert Fuller) is on the right.

I love Laramie (1959-1963). I love almost everything about it: the way it's so shamelessly and simply a Western, the way each episode is 45 minutes long, the way the first two seasons are in black and white while the last two seasons are in color. I love how surprisingly complex and compelling individual episodes are--like "Trial by Fire," which you think is going to be about forest fires but which turns out to be about a saloon girl trying to escape into a new life as a fraudulent mail-order bride. I love the characters: steady-going Slim Sherman with his strong sense of justice and beaming smile, quick-tempered Jess Harper with his fierce loyalty and checkered past. I love the fatherly sheriff Mort Corey and the delightfully motherly housekeeper Daisy Cooper (whom at first blush I did not like at all, but about whom I could now ramble for pages). I love Slim and Jess' friendship and the way it sits at the very heart of the show. I love the Cyril Mockridge score. I love the dramatic dialogue. I love Jess' horse and the white star on its forehead. I love it I love it I love it.

Something about Laramie I do NOT love: the quantity of episodes in which either Slim or Jess rides away from the ranch, resulting in 45 minutes of glorious Western TV spent in the company of only one of the boys. Not both of them together. One of them alone.

I hate for cowboys to be lone cowboys. 

I hate when main characters ride away from home. 

Because a home is a lovely thing, you know? It's a place where you are safe. More than that--it's a place where you are loved. A place where you have people to take care of you (and people for you to take care of). It's a hospital for loneliness. 

And not everyone has one. So homes are especially nice when they're opened up to people who need them. 

And if I had to pick one reason to love Laramie, it would be the fact that it's really a found family story. Jess Harper starts out alone, and then the Sherman Ranch offers him a home, and through having a home, he becomes a better person. He's your typical angsty drifter, Jess Harper is--dark and slight and quick on the draw, popular with the ladies but not one to stick around, a Confederate veteran of the Civil War who left his family somewhere in Texas and has been on the wrong side of the law. His shady past follows him around throughout the show--and even as late as Season 3, it sometimes gets the better of him. (See "The Replacement," wherein Jess gets involved in a plot to gun down a lawman.) But through it all Slim is there to keep him straight, to challenge him to a life of virtue.

(Sarah Seele wrote a post years ago on what a great friend Jess is, and it's beautiful and you should read it--and I would just like to add, the kind of grace Jess extends Hatch in "The Star Trail" is exactly the kind of grace Slim extends Jess throughout the show.)

And gradually, through being at Sherman Ranch and having a real friend in Slim and a spiritual mother in Daisy Cooper and a virtual little brother in Andy (or Mike, depending on the season)--through having a home with these people, Jess heals. 

You know how sometimes, in a show without major plot points, you can detect gradual shifts in mood even though there's no real emphasis on character arcs? It's subtle, but I am just so proud of Jess in Season 4. He's always been good at doing for others what Slim has done for him--the verse "we love because He first loved us" inevitably comes to mind--but in Season 4 there is a decided feeling of settledness and permanence in Jess Harper's status as a citizen of Laramie. There's an episode where he struggles to balance his loyalty to the town with family loyalty, and in that one what makes the conflict painful in the way the townspeople put all their trust unreservedly in Jess; they're willing to back him no matter what--this deputy who once was a drifter. 

There's even an episode ("The Last Battleground") where he's able to be to Slim what Slim has always been to him--a steadying influence who keeps him from flying off the handle when old hurts get stirred up. 

Jess has healed by Season 4--he's healed a lot. What were once raw wounds are now merely scars. The kind you can show off and say, "Look what I've been through. Look what I've survived."

The Sherman Ranch is a good place for Jess to be. And I just want him to stay there forever. To be safe with Daisy and Mike and Slim and just have a quiet, normal life. To just...be home.

I want Jess to always be either at the Sherman Ranch or by Slim's side.

But he can't.

The fact of life (and of Western cinema) is, there are cattle drives to go on and bank robbers to chase down, cattle rustlers to apprehend and weeks Mort Corey needs a deputy. There are times when Jess has to ride away from Sherman Ranch. There are times when he can't be at home.

That's the way our lives work, too, y'know?

The similarity between Jess Harper and the life of a mature Christian struck me the day before I left home the first time, and I can't tell you how much comfort it brought me. Which is probably weird, but whatever gets you through the day, am I right? 

Just like Jess Harper, each of us is a wounded individual. (Almost nobody I know prefers Slim to Jess, except for my sisters, which makes sense because my sisters are outrageously healthy people.) We might not be haunted gunslingers, but we've been dinked up in our years of living. And we badly need a place to heal. A place to be loved with the unconditional love that only God can give, but which usually comes to us through human vessels. Sometimes that comes from our biological family; sometimes it comes from a spiritual family, like the one Jess finds at the Sherman Ranch. 

And once we've received that healing love through acceptance and friendship--we can't just rest in it. 

We should rest in it, to be sure, but we can't just rest in it. 

We have to go out.

Because there are other wounded people out there. Other haunted drifters. Other Jess Harpers.

Who's going to be Christ to them, if not us?

Jess can't leave all the do-gooding to Slim. He's got to pull his weight around Laramie. He's got to be a credit to his partner, prove that Slim's faith in him wasn't wasted. (I honestly think some 80% of Jess' motivations in the show can be traced to his gratitude for the second chance Slim gave him. Maybe more than 80%.)

So yeah. We've gotta go out, like Jess. And it's not fun.

And the scary part is, once we set out, there is no guarantee we'll come back in this lifetime. 

"Tell Slim to look for me when he sees me," says a justly angered Jess Harper to Sheriff Mort Corey in "The Marshals," one of the last episodes of the final season. He rides off after the bad guys--and ends up getting shot to pieces.

(Because of course he does. Have I mentioned that Laramie has a melodrama problem? I actually think "The Marshals" is an unhealthy episode because it's just reveling in melodrama. But it also works perfectly for the sake of this argument, so I'll stop grumbling.) 

Jess has no guarantee of making it back to the Sherman Ranch alive.  

It's not pretty.

But it's real, y'know? The West is not a safe place, and neither is the world. It's a dangerous business going out your door, and all that.

The thing is, cowboys are not meant to be safe all the time. Neither are Christians. 

The important thing is not staying safe at the Sherman Ranch. The Sherman Ranch is training ground for Slim Shermans. The duty of rehabilitated Jess Harpers is to go bring a bit of the justice and courage and stout goodhearted humor that is the Sherman Ranch into an unforgiving wild Western world.

Anyway.

One more nice thing about Sherman Ranches: 

You may not have any guarantee of making it back. But if you do make it back, you can bet your bottom dollar they'll be glad to see you.

"What's the matter?" says a more-than-usually banged-up Jess Harper as he steps out of the wagon at the end of "The Marshals." "Aren't you glad to see me?" And Slim and Daisy and Mike welcome him home with open arms. 

Even if Jess hadn't made it back that particular time--it's nice to have something like that to come back to. 

And this whole thing has got me thinking--what I really want to do with my life is establish a Sherman Ranch of my own, y'know? Retire from Jess Harpering and become a Daisy Cooper.

But Daisy Cooper is a topic for another day.

Well, my dears! That is all I have for you today! Have you seen Laramie? (I assume not, cuz it's kinda hard to get a hold of, BUT if you HAVE seen it and if you DO love it then I MUST know whether you are on Team Slim or Team Jess. Not that there should be any discrepancy between the two fan clubs. But it's just the way things go. There is a bitter war on at my family abode between my Ridiculously Healthy Sisters, who are on Team Slim, and myself, who will go to bat for Jess Harper until the day I die. Someday I will write an essay comparing & contrasting their characters, exploring how Slim's morality puts PRINCIPLES first [but in a way that appropriately values people] and Jess' is primarily focused on PEOPLE [but in a way that gets him in trouble]. I just think they are Very Interesting Characters and I love both of them very very much.)

OK now I'm actually done. 

I go now to read other peoples' contributions to Legends of Western Cinema Week, and I highly advise you to do the same! Happy trails!