Sam Shepard :: Where Does A Hero Live?

Through bragging, a lot of early-day American heroes sprang up. Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, all those mythic guys emerged from the fantastic "tall tales," mostly based on macho bravado and superhuman strength. Pecos Bill dug the Rio Grande with his bare hands. Paul Bunyan uprooted mighty trees and drank whole lakes in a single sitting. But these guys were totally fictitious. Then there were the real live ones like Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Mickey Free, Buffalo Bill. Tales grew around them mostly out of a giant communications gap between the stolid intellectual East Coast and the wide-open . . .

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