A Johnny West action figure was the perfect Christmas morning gift

To twist a line from the legendary Willie Nelson, my heroes haven’t always been cowboys. But my first ones certainly were.

Growing up in the early 1970s, cowboy imagery was pervasive.

The movies and TV were filled with cattle rustlers and gunslingers and Texas Rangers and riders of the purple sage, running the gamut of authentic frontier grittiness from Steve McQueen’s cold-blooded “Tom Horn” to Fred Kirby’s amiable but somewhat confused “Fred Kirby.”

Looking back, I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t been fascinated by cowboy culture, although, to be fair, when you’re 6, you can’t look back very far.

As Christmastime approached each year, my tiny and not yet fully functional brain swam with fitful visions of the treasures Santa would bring.

Perhaps toy guns — naturally, only the ones that were detailed wood-and-plastic representations of the two most iconic cowboy firearms, the Winchester Model 94 rifle and the Colt single-action revolver?

Fringed vests and buckskin jackets?

A wide-brimmed Stetson with a band made of genuine rattlesnake hide?

Chaps? Spurs? Boots?

I wanted them all, but I could easily get by without them, provided Santa carried in his bag the grandest of all cowboy toys: Johnny West action figures.

Johnny and his cohorts, among them Chief Geronimo, outlaw Sam Cobra, Sheriff Pat Garrett, and female companion Jane West, were part of the Best of the West series of 12-inch figures (Collect them all!) produced by the famed Louis Marx and Company, which manufactured all sorts of cool toys for the better part of the 20th Century.

The Johnny West stuff was perfect for kids whose folks were like mine: poor.

For only a fistful of dollars, my parents could provide their first-born with endless hours of quiet, calm entertainment, and themselves with commensurate spans of relative peace and tranquility, which, if you listened to my folks, were the second and third most precious commodities in existence, right behind money.

Best of all, Johnny West figures came with gear. Lots of gear. And as we all know, when it comes to action figures, the more gear, the better. It hardly mattered that all of it was the same color: brown.

Old Johnny, who, best I could figure, worked as a rancher of some sort, came packaged with — and this is just from memory, so I’m sure there was more — a Colt, Winchester, Bowie knife, saddlebags, chaps, spurs, branding iron, coffee pot, frying pan, strongbox, and an amorphous, brown lump I’m pretty sure was supposed to be a pile of gold (Children may choke on small pieces).

All a kid had to do was heft Johnny onto his trusted steed, Thunderbolt (Sold separately), and the living room floor became the open range; the sandbox a sweltering, West-Texas desert; the lawn a vast expanse of grassy prairie.

In that imaginary world, a man could take his guns, knife, and horse into the wild frontier and stay as long as he pleased, relying on his wits and fortitude, living off the land, boiling coffee in his coffee pot, frying up a slab of bacon in his frying pan, and guarding his lump of gold from Sam Cobra.

They had a name for that kind of life: Freedom. And when Johnny West felt free, so did I.

At some point — it must have been around the time I started kindergarten and discovered the existence of amazing creatures called girls — I figured ol’ Johnny must sometimes get pretty lonely on the prairie, with no one around to kiss but Thunderbolt.

I didn’t dare ask Santa for a Jane West, though.

Even at that tender age, I knew to do so would be to cross the line from “action figure” to “doll.”

One year, however, maybe it was 1974, I worked up the courage to beg Santa for the grandest and most expensive toy in the line, the Johnny West covered wagon.

I pictured Johnny driving his prairie schooner into town once a month to pick up essential supplies like coffee and bacon, and maybe to deposit his lump of gold in the bank.

The covered wagon carried a price tag upward of $20, so I didn’t hold out much hope. Around my house, Santa Claus was like Merle Haggard, just trying to make it through December.

But Christmas is a time for miracles, and on that magical morning, which shines more brightly and brilliantly in my memory with each passing year, I unwrapped one (Some assembly required).

I don’t remember much else about that day, but I’m almost positive me and Johnny drove the covered wagon into town for supplies.