Accepting Change, Sometimes Grudgingly

Even John Wayne accepted change, albeit often grudgingly. In one of his later movies, "Big Jake," a favorite of mine, the story has many elements of the changing of the times, and of the Duke's gradual, but not total, acceptance of those changes. It was set in the early 1900s, and while horse travel still dominated, the automobile, a contraption viewed with contempt by Wayne's character, had entered the scene in the "Old West." The movie shows the limits of the modern vehicle, as the good guys, in automobiles, chase the bad guys, who are on horseback. Horses can climb much rough terrain, something automobiles cannot do. Both horses and automobiles need water and "fuel," with the fuel for horses being of the food variety, of course. Two of Wayne's sons* in the film like the new automatic handguns and rifles with telescopic sights, as opposed to Wayne's old-fashioned "six shooter," standard rifle, and "sawed-off shotgun." Wayne tells the one son to use the new rifle to shoot a deer that is off in the distance, but the son refuses to shoot the deer to make a point, displaying the emerging new morality.** When Wayne tells him "we need food," the boy then complies, astounding Wayne with his perfect shot at great distance. Wayne begins to accept the modern rifle as an improvement over the old. Wayne gets an old Indian friend to help him, and the two lament the disappearance of the buffalo from the American Plains, a travesty both progressives and conservatives could agree upon.*** In a poignant moment, Wayne tells him, "Things change."

In the final showdown, one son, armed with the automatic handgun, takes down a top gunslinger with a six shooter. The other son has the new rifle, but he misses the first shot, showing that new things aren't infallible, but he nails the bad guy with his second shot. In the end, the bad guys, led by veteran actor Richard Boone, are killed and Wayne's kidnapped grandson is freed (the "old" saving the "new"). Wayne's Indian friend is killed in the shootout, just as the Indians have also disappeared from the Plains.  

* One son played by the Duke's real life son, Patrick, and the other played by Robert Mitchum's son, Christopher.

** Things are not so black and white, as hunters associated with my family always sought to protect wildlife from abuse and overkill, but I get the point. 

*** As I've noted many times before, unfettered capitalism says, "Get the money, get the money, get the money. The hell with buffalo, the landscape, or Mother Nature." The scary question is, where would many of today's Republican leaders come down on such an issue?

WORD HISTORY:
Change-This word goes back to Indo European "kamb," which had the notion of "bent, crooked." This was passed on to its Old Celtic^ offspring, seemingly intact, as "kamb." Latin borrowed the term as "cambire," by which time the notion of "bent, crooked" had developed the secondary idea of "altered, changed," and the notion of "altered" then further developed into "change hands;" that is, "exchange, barter." This then became Latin "cambiare" and it was inherited by Latin-based Old French^^ as "changier," although still with the primary meaning "alter." English borrowed the word from French as "change" in the 1200s. The noun form has the same basic history, except the Latin verb produced the noun "cambio," meaning "an exchange, bartering." Old French inherited it as "change," which was then picked up by English in the early 1200s.The idea of "balance sum returned from a payment" (as in, "The price was $5.99, and here's the 'change' from your $10.00") developed in the late 1500s or the early 1600s.

^ Celtic is a branch of the Indo European family of languages. Its dialects were once widespread in Europe, but only a few survive as modern languages; for example, Scots/Scottish Gaelic, Irish (Gaelic), Welsh, and Breton (spoken in Brittany, France). These languages are all related to English, but further down the family tree.

^^ Old French was the dialect spoken in what is now much of France, part of Belgium, part of Switzerland, and part of Luxembourg. When the Romans conquered this area, circa 50 B.C., the area was largely Celtic speaking, but gradually Latin spread throughout, giving something of a mixture, but with Latin dominating. Germanic tribes conquered, settled, or traversed parts of the region, giving a Germanic layer to the language; in fact, the terms "France" and "French" are derived from the Germanic tribe the Franks, and "Burgundy" is derived from the Germanic tribe the Burgundians. Later still, the North Germanic "Northmen" raided, then settled in, an area that came to be called "Normandy," derived from "Northmen," as is the name of the inhabitants, the "Normans." All of these factors influenced Old French, and thus modern French, but Latin remained the primary component.