Are there any real men left out there? In society�s attempt to make the male population or our species more kind, sensitive, and gentle, the male has also lost his manliness. We have become mush spines, afraid to show any sign of machismo for fear of being called Neanderthals. We�re afraid to speak our minds for we may be found to be politically incorrect, or worse, a male chauvinist.

As for me, I�m a member of a dying breed; a breed on the verge of extinction. I like football, not ballet. I want to see a rodeo, not an opera. I�ll take a boxing match over golf any day.

When it comes to my music, I want to hear country music. I don�t want to hear a symphony (I can experience all the movements that I care to with a bottle of prune juice). Now I�m not speaking of the "new" country music that�s being played today. I like my country raw like it used to be. I want to hear songs about manly troubles: broken marriages, getting on the whiskey, fighting, rodeos, pickups, trains, prison, and Mama.

When eating, I want manly food. I like big ol� steaks, not sushi. And concerning that steak, leave the fat around the edges and cook it well done. I want the fat (oh, oh, there�s the "F" word again) around the edges to crunch when I eat it. Sure, this will plug my heart with cholesterol, but hey, cholesterol is a manly disease; that�s how I want to die, like a man.

Feed me barbecued ribs with mashed potatoes and gravy, none of that stir fry stuff thank you very much. Give me grits, hotcakes with syrup on them, fried eggs with runny yokes to dip my buttered toast in, and a pile of has browns fried in butter like Grandma used to make. Don�t give me that bran stuff with skim milk on it along with whole wheat bread lightly touched with margarine. No sir, I want a man�s meal!

I�m tired of movies where the male lead is a thin, little wisp of a guy who spends most of the picture pondering the meaning of life; who grows gray hairs worrying about whether or not he is sensitive enough to the needs of others and spends his quiet moments trying to get in touch with his feminine side. Give me those good old John Wayne movies. Now there was a man�s man. Whether it was cowboy picture, a detective picture, or a war flick, the characters he played were gruff and manly as they come. Nope, there aren�t too many men like him around anymore.

When I was a kid I had real men to my heroes. They were cowboys, mountain men, policemen, army men, football players, and the like. They were tough, brave, strong, and fearless. The youngsters now-a-days have guys like Bart Simpson, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Marilyn Manson to look upon as heroes.

Call me a dinosaur, insensitive, a throw-back to an earlier time, whatever, but I feel the word "Macho" should be the rallying cry for the few of us real men left in the world to unite in an effort to bring our breed back from the edge of extinction. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to hurry and get the house clean and dinner cooked before everybody at my household get home from work.