maverick secrets: decoding early tv westerns

At a city-run Senior Center in San Antonio, a multicultural group of seniors is playing Texas Hold’Em poker and chatting. These casual friends have developed a habit to gather mornings to play cards before the Center’s free lunch service begins. They overhear an old Western being broadcast on TV monitors from the nearby exercise area. They discuss how Westerns unconsciously influenced them as children to hold biased attitudes about cultural minorities, women’s roles, and openly-carried firearms.

Bonnie is a Jewish, divorced woman who moved to South Texas from back East and is fascinated by the contrasted cultures.

Mashawn is a Black man, married guardian of his pre-teen grandson whose father is incarcerated. This Center is near his child’s school.

Valinda is a Black, single, wheelchair-bound diabetic woman, who in younger days danced on the TV show, Soul Train. Her daughter was shot to death by an abusive boyfriend.

Keith, of Irish extraction, is native Texan, a married, retired military man. He became an expert card player in the service and also developed passions for gun ownership and game hunting.

Lupe, a married Mexican-American woman, has lived with her family in Tejas for many generations, since the first migrations of Canary Islanders and Spaniards in the 1600s.

Maverick Secrets. Decoding Early TV Westerns is a dramatic script developed by Catherine Lee, funded in 2024 with a Literary Arts grant to her as an Individual Artist from the City of San Antonio, Texas, Department of Arts & Culture. It is extensively notated and contains bibliographies of both Works Cited and Research Consulted for opinions expressed by the characters.