chapter xxii: life in a vacuum  

Although life in the alien culture of America was a struggle, myeck's immigrant parents eventually scraped together enough money to buy the family the ultimate symbol of American Success -- a Television set. Entranced by the shiny new technological marvel, the family gathered around it every evening, endlessly adjusting the antenna and fiddling with the controls.  The novelty never seemed to wear off.

Sticking the power plug into the   family's heirlooom gelding harness   never failed to amuse the kids.

 

One day, a family friend came over to visit. He showed the family that they have even more fun if they plugged it in and turned it on. Soon, the family was immersing itself in the American popular culture of the day, watching sparkly variety shows, tense medical dramas, heartwarming family comedies, and most of all, Westerns.

 

myeck's immigrant father found Westerns most fascinating of all, partly because, not realizing they were set in the past, he thought he was learning valuable roping skills for surviving in America, and partly because the cowboys reminded him of the

A Yak Man (artist's reconstruction).

Yak Men of his youth in the Old Country. Of course, he would point out, the Yak Men didn't ride around all day with their six-shooters blazing.  "They generally didn't carry firearms." he would declare, "They were real men. They didn't need guns."