In the 50's and 60's we had television and the best programs were the westerns. My best friend Naomi and I sat on the floor in front of the television in her parents' bedroom at night and let it all wash over us; Gunsmoke (we felt bad for Miss Kitty, always in love with unobtainable Sheriff Matt), The Rifleman, Have Gun Will Travel, Maverick, Wagon Train, Rawhide, and The Rebel. But our favorite western was Bonanza.

We deeply loved the characters in that show; the father, played by Lorne Greene, handsome, always righteous, in control; Adam, played by Pernell Roberts, everybody's favorite big brother, brave and defiant; Hoss, bigger and stronger than anyone, with a heart (they said) as big as his body; and finally Little Joe, Michael Landon in real life, who wore his cowboy hat cocked to one side. Sometimes Little Joe would get into trouble due to his boyish and rebellious ways; and when "Pa" (Lorne Greene) called Little Joe "Joseph" we knew he was in trouble deep.

No women on the Ponderosa (the Cartwright ranch, roughly a quarter of the Nevada territory.) Only female visitors who came and eventually messed things up in some way. By the end of the show they left on the stagecoach which took them back to "the city." Even the Cartwright's cook and housekeeper was male.

Solidly embedded in Freud's latency period--Naomi and I were nine and ten years old during our love of Bonanza--we didn't "want" the Cartwright men--we wanted to BE the Cartwright men. Naomi, playing the field, had no favorite among them; I, however, always wanted to be Adam. Why? He looked and acted like my father. Pernell Roberts shared my father's dark good looks--shiny black hair, honest eyes, a thick and heavy beard that never completely disappeared even when shaved, no matter how often--a permanent four o'clock shadow. Adam was not as tall and lean as my father, but his seriousness, his lack of silliness, his moral rectitude--this was my Dad.

Our parents curtailed us from watching television during the days, but they lost the energy to stop us from watching the westerns at night. Who knows why? Maybe they liked the shows too?