In my previous post, I attempted to gently express how irritated I get when someone with Left Coast plates jumps up with a Hollywood horse-hockey version of what some poli-critter in Newt Yack City, or Maryland, or Cali-Ore-Washing-stan would like the law to be and expects me to enforce it, and no questions asked.
Second only to that on the LawDog Irritation-O-Meter, is the kiddies who want to bring their Los Angeles/San Fran/Seattle problems to Texas.
Like the vegetarian girl with Washington plates who cussed out a cowboy, and then spit into his basket of french fries, all because he was eating a burger.
(By-the-by, ladies, a valuable lesson was learned here: if you’re going to Say It With Saliva, make sure your boyfriend can take a whuppin’.)
Anyhoo, can we possible leave our angsty little problems back at the old homestead? Please?
Ahem.
Once upon a time…no, wait, wrong format.
Our evening deputy was cruising the northwest section of the county when this towering pillar of black smoke sort of catches his attention.
He hares off down a Farm-to-Market road, finds the lease that the smoke is coming from and notices that the gate at the cattle guard is standing wide open. He goes over the cattle guard, and then down about half-a-mile of badly rutted dirt/clay/gravel road, to find a yellow late-model Mustang high-centered on one of the ruts. The drivers side door is standing open and one white male is standing behind the car, attempting to rock it off of high center.
‘Bout a hundred yards down the road, there’s a pump-jack totally engulfed in flames.
Deputy Frank figures that there’s probably a young lady somewhere, but he really wants this car out of the way, because there’s a bunch of fire trucks about to come down this road, and the local VFD isn’t too particular about how they move obstructing vehicles, so he gets out of the cruiser to give the young man a hand.
Young man looks up, and then promptly hauls butt into the surrounding mesquite thickets. More on this later. Heh.
Frank begins inventing new swear words, and stomps over to the Mustang whereupon he Makes Some Observations: A) The inside of the car reeks of gasoline; and
B) There’s a brand new pack of road flares in the passenger seat, only there appears to be one flare missing.
While we may be Small Town, that doesn’t mean that we’re dumb.
Other deputy shows up, they get the Mustang pushed out of the way just before the fire department roars down the road and does their best with the conflagration.
Anyhoo, Himself comes out, inspects the scene and we find the back seat of the Mustang plumb buried under hand-written pamphlets, mimeographed manifestos, and other such niceties.
Seems like the lad had a case of the hips regarding “Energy conglomerates and the rape of the petro-chemical wealth of the planet”. Or somesuch.
The Sheriff sighs, has a reserve deputy and myself sit on the hood of the Mustang in case Todd the Eco-Warrior makes his way back, while the on-duty deputy gets to drive up and down the FM roads surrounding the lease with orders to snatch any hitchhikers.
Let me see a show of paws from the people who have experience in North Texas mesquite thickets.
*snicker*
Mesquites have very long thorns, and they grow very low to the ground and very close together. In addition mesquite thickets are the favoured lairs of ticks, no-see-ums, wheel bugs, tarantulas, fire ants, red ants, spiders and pasty-faced men with chain saws. Not to mention that cactus, jumping-getcha, devils claw, and other anti-social plants also like thickets.
The wind doesn’t ever seem to get into the mesquite thickets, but the humidity does. And the heat. And here’s our critter, in his black no-dye tissue-thin batique cotton drawstring drawers and his politically-correct black hemp guyabera shirt and his black cordura sandals.
Anyhoo, Bubba and I sat there juggling a can of Deep Woods Off for about twenty minutes before hearing this blood-curdling yodel and we see Todd the Revolutionary, black bandanna pulled up bandit-style over his lower face, burst forth from the mesquite in a buzzing grey cloud and sprint for the open drivers door of the Mustang, ululating every step of the way.
We watched him cover the hundred or so feet at a dead sprint, and then Bubba casually reached over and pushed the door closed, causing Young Toddy to ricochet off the closed door and into the dust, much to the delight of the mosquitoes.
I waved the car keys at him. I suppose I need to read the Anarchist Handbook, because this is apparently a gross violation of the rules of the game. All five foot, six inches, one hundred thirty pounds of halitosis and macrobiotic methane jumped to his feet, struck a bee-yoo-ti-ful tai chi stance and proclaimed: “It took six LAPD pigs to take me to jail. I’m not afraid of you!”
*snort*
He went to jail.
LawDog
I am in Oregon; the entire state isn’t that bad, but with all of the migrating Californians, its getting bad in the cities. I read your posts on THR, and followed a link from your pink gorilla story to here. I love your stories, and am looking into being a Reserve Deputy for the county where I am going to college. Keep up the great work!
Bye God you’re alright! These nutcases haven’t invaded my part of the country yet and I hope they never do! We are just way to uncivilized where I’m from, Western Nebraska. But I hate the way they have ruined the front range over in Colorado. Last year my wife , my daughter and I were sitting in a cafe in a town north of Denver and happened to overhear a real estate agent complaining about how Bush and the Republican party was ruining America, at near the top of her lungs. I simply asked if her sales and income had increased since 2001. She looked at me like I just flew in from the moon and asked what that had to do with anything. Well tired of typing just thought I’d share that with you.
If that town “north of Denver” was Boulder, you might as well be in LA or San Francisco. Or at the Oscars. Right now they don’t know what to do with the praire dogs that have ruined 5 ball fields the local kids use. Most around Boulder don’t want the dogs moved, ’cause they’re just so cute.My son sees a praire dog, grins, and just says, “Plague”.
OldeForce
This post is a thing of beauty. I can’t wait for my husband to read it.
Got family living near Colorado Springs, with serious problems with idiots from CA and OR and WA moving there ‘to get away from the problems back in’, and then trying to change things to make it more like where they’re escaping from.
Idiots.
Californicators are spreading to Kansas too, bringing in their ruin and awful ways.
Lawdog I envy you sooooooooo much in that situation. I and a few others would pay sums of money to get five minutes of legal physical time with an enviro-terrorist.
First let me say that I live in California and have for most of my life. I was born in Georgia though, so that might be my genetic saving grace.
I will not apologize for the people of this state. I won't even stick up for most. I am not on the side of these yahoos that are "Just Traveling". I don't see the sense of it. You live, breath and eat in the USA, play by the rules and be a good boy.
I must live in the wrong state.