Because humor is funnier when you know it's true.
Playing cowboys
Like most of my friends growing up in the 50’s, I watched the Westerns of the day – Roy Rogers, Gun Smoke, Have Gun - Will Travel, the Rifleman, and the Lone Ranger. We all had cap pistols and played cowboys every chance we got.
My cousins and I especially liked to play cowboys on our grandparents' property. Besides their house, they had a luncheonette, a small grocery store, and a garage with attached buildings and assorted outbuildings and sheds. We would run around and through those buildings all day.
There was one favorite building that I had assumed was a predecessor to the luncheonette, as it was complete with old tables, chairs, and a counter with stools. We would sit on those stools and make believe we were cowboys ordering drinks at a western saloon. It wasn’t until many years later that my father admitted that building actually had been a saloon, as grandpa ran a speakeasy there during Prohibition. So much for our creative imaginations.
-Anonymous