Education of a Wandering Man

By: Erik Rittenberry

"I think of myself in the oral tradition--as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man in the shadows of a campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered--as a storyteller.”

—Louis L’Amour

Thoreau once famously said, “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” And I can think of few writers more worthy of this truism than the great American storyteller Louis L'Amour.

Before penning over a hundred books, Louis L'Amour led an adventurous life, one of wandering, seafaring, ridin’ the rails, and laboring at odd jobs across the land. Born in North Dakota, he left home at the age of 15 (“school was interfering with my education”) and spent years roaming across the United States and beyond, working as a ranch hand, merchant seaman, boxer, lumberjack, and miner.

His hobo travels took him from the deserts of the American West to ports around the world, experiences that profoundly influenced his later writing.

Yet even amid his vagabond existence, L’Amour carried with him an unquenchable thirst for words, knowledge, and the voices of those who had come before. He read wherever fate cast him—by the dim light of boxcars rattling through the night, on the decks of lonely ships adrift at sea, in the quiet corners of a world that seemed indifferent to his thirst.

“For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.”

L’Amour came into the world with two priceless advantages: “good health and a love of learning.”

Through the destitute years of the Great Depression, with little more than his restless spirit and the books he could find, he devoured history, philosophy, poetry—anything that could feed the fire within.

“I have read my books by many lights, hoarding their beauty, their wit or wisdom against the dark days when I would have no book, nor a place to read. I have known hunger of the belly kind many times over, but I have known a worse hunger: the need to know and to learn.”

He once said that his life had been a “story of an adventure in education, pursued not under the best of conditions.” He realized that education isn’t just tied to schools, universities, and professors but is available “to anyone within reach of a library, a post office, or even a newsstand.”

“Often I hear people say they do not have time to read. That’s absolute nonsense. In the one year during which I kept that kind of record, I read twenty-five books while waiting for people. In offices, applying for jobs, waiting to see a dentist, waiting in a restaurant for friends, many such places. I read on buses, trains, and planes. If one really wants to learn, one has to decide what is important. Spend an evening on the town? Attending a ball game? Or learning something that can be with you your life long?”

With his tattered clothes and tired bones, L’Amour never wavered from his quest to learn about the world. He believed education was a lifelong pursuit that one had to pursue for oneself. No one can “get” an education, he once said, for education is a continuing process.

“Education should provide the tools for a widening and deepening of life, for increased appreciation of all one sees or experiences. It should equip a person to live life well, to understand what is happening about him, for to live life well one must live with awareness.’

L'Amour’s writing career began in the 1930s when he dabbled in poetry and short stories. He sold his first story in 1935 for a measly $6.94, but he hit his stride after World War II, when he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

Settling briefly in Los Angeles, he churned out pulp fiction before gaining fame with novels like Hondo (1953). Despite eventually planting roots in California, his restless early years—hitchhiking, hopping freight trains, and living among hobos and ranchers—infused his 89 novels and countless stories with beautiful and authentic storytelling.

For him, no place held more intriguing tales than the American West. He was drawn to this barren frontier, where the people were strong and relentless in their pursuit of a better life.

"The western pioneers were select people, selected by themselves. They chose to break the mold, to leave all they knew behind and venture into a new country, with new problems, new standards. Each one was expected to stand on his own feet. He was a moving of his own volition, on his own support system. Nobody was paying his way or showing him the way; nobody had told him to go, or where to go. He simply packed what goods he could carry and headed west, looking for what chance might offer.”

By the time of his death in 1988, L'Amour had sold over 200 million books, leaving a legacy as the bard of the wandering West.

I’ll conclude with his beautiful words on the definition of success and the lifelong pursuit of education:

Success often means security, safety in your home, safety in your possessions. To me success has meant just two things: a good life for your family, and the money to buy books and continue the education of this wandering man, who has ceased to wander except in his memory, his thoughts, and the books he writes.

Books are precious things, but more than that, they are the strong backbone of civilization. They are the thread upon which it all hangs, and they can save us when all else is lost.

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