I don’t know if this statue has ever been replaced but grant me for a moment that it hasn’t. Can you imagine all he has seen? Years have come and gone around him. Styles have certainly changed. Family dynamics too (I’m looking at you, family glued to mobile devices). Every day he rebels against the advice our mothers gave us about not staring into the sun.
When I see him, I see memories. I see longing. I imagine he longs for the West, the Wild West, before cowboys, coaches and cavalry. A time he has never known in reality. He is only a statue, after all. But to me, he’s not just a statue. He is a monument to the way things were and the way things have gone. And when he stares deeply into the sunset each day, he thinks to himself, “Westward HO! That’s where I want to be.”
