Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, via the majesty of the Western miniseries ‘Lonesome Dove’

Like many now gray-haired men of my generation, and a few women too, I wanted to be a cowboy. TV made me that way, starting with such early shoot-‘em-up characters as Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, Zorro and the Cisco Kid, all closer to cartoons than real people but influential nevertheless.

Then came “Gunsmoke,” in 1955, “Bonanza” and more: “Cheyenne,” “Have Gun — Will Travel,” “Rawhide,” “The Rifleman,” “Wanted Dead or Alive,” “Maverick,” “Bat Masterson” and “Wyatt Earp.”

There were many, many others born of a climate of anti-communism and the Cold War, the clean-cut morality of the