does Texas still have carpetbaggers?

[Josh B]

I had a promising run last week from Lubbock to Pearsall Tx.  Right through hill country (flint central).  I seen a lot of flint laying around, but always on the other side of the fence.  Not knowing any landowners I drove right by.  Finally I noticed a rancher and some of his hands working on fence so I hit the shoulder and approached him about maybe picking up some flint.  Now I've done a fair bit of travelling through Texas over the yrs and for the most part I have found the people to be quite polite and hospitable.  This fella was not!  I never even finished my pitch before he started threatening to call the law if I didn't get in my truck and leave.  Now I have to say he didn't sound like any native born Texan that I ever met.  If i was to guess at his accent, I would swear he was from the northeast.  Boston area to be more specific.  Now the question I have is, is this the way all hill country ranchers conduct themselves or was this guy just an overwrought carpetbagger.  Don't get me wrong, I don't hold it against the man for turning me down.  Its his land and his perogative.  What rankled me was the manner in which he did it.  Josh

[JW_Halverson]

We got some skunks of that same stripe here in the Black Hills now.  They buy a "ranchette" of 6 acres, put 4 horses on it, and suddenly think they are self appointed Open Range Regulators!  They saw too many bad westerns, think that this is the wild west and that bad-ass is a western value. 

If they drew a deep breath and took a minute to see how life is out here, they would quickly learn that the predominant attitude in the locals is "good-ass".  We bale the neighbor's hay and stack it because he has to be at the hospital beside his wife during a difficult labor, we help brand and nut his stock because he did it with us last year, and we drop what we had planned when we find out he is working that stretch of fence that we both share because, dang it, we BOTH share that fence, and nobody remembers who paid for the posts or the wire in any case. (Well, we really do, but it is a commonly held falsehood that we "forgot".)

I suspect this guy's neighbors will put up with only so much before he finds life just a little too tough and he leaves.  In the meanwhile, he has to look at his own sour face every morning.  Not that your phiz is all that dang sexy, but it least it wears a stupid grin better than half the time, and that makes it bearable for the rest of us. Anyway, his crappy rock all has frost fractures and crusty inclusions shot all thru it. 

[JEB]

You know, everyone is different with different attitudes.  I was driving down the road near Fredericksburg and saw a good straight Yucca stalk coming out of a yucca plant on the other side of the fence.  I stopped and walked up to the door and ask if I could cut  it to make a hiking stick out of it.  I was sent on my way.  Keep in mind, Yucca stalks die and news ones grow in its place so I wasn't going to hurt the plant.

So later I stopped to collect some knapping rock, not gold, but rocks, off the Perdenales river bank and some guy stopped me and  warned me about rock collecting. I was next to a bridge so I figured it was government/ state property.

 Concerned about being stopped from collecting sticks and stones I drove down the river road and stopped at a house and asked the home owner if I could collect some rock and she  wanted to know if I wanted some help collecting. She was as nice as she could be. Next time I am in the state/town she gets a gift of Maple syrup from Michigan as a thank you.

People are different and that is what makes the world go round.

 

[JW_Halverson]

People are different and that is what makes the world go round.

Sad when some just wanna be speed bumps.

[Tower]

You should have looks me up. I know where you can load up.    With that being said. I've seen a lot of Texas that don't trust anyone lately.  It wasn't like that until recent. A very good friend of mine is a heavy equipment mechanic for Case. Occasionally the GpS is very wrong & he gets lost.  He's had guns pulled on him several times the last couple years.  Mind you he's in a big work truck.  He always manages to defuse the situation  . He tell me they all say the same thing " you just can't trust people like you used to".  Its not like that everywhere, but It's a shame . Every now & then you can still find a good ole boy.   

[Zuma]

First was Texas with the south? lol
The situation you encountered is nothing
new for most the rest of the populated world.
I remember Lubbock as a backwater town 52 years ago and
Big Springs airport consisted of a john and a candy machine.
I am not saying it is a good thing happening but it is what it is.
The more folks jambed in to an area the more defensive they become.
I have seen it from Boston to Miami and Miami to Northern California.
On the other hand, I have been treated like a king in all those places as well.
More folks =more bad apples. Proportionately speaking.
Zuma

[Pat B]

This is a more fitting Campfire talk than a knapping discussion.

[Josh B]

Dag nabbit Pat!  I was trying to post a long winded reply when you moved the thread and I lost the whole reply!   I reckon you were right to do so though.  lol!
I appreciate the replies fellas.  I guess I've been pretty fortunate in my encounters with folks up til now.  I pick up wood, stone and other materials all over the country and it's been seldom that I've been turned away.  Even on those rare occasions, it's been done so politely that I've felt and expressed a genuine gratefulness for their time.  I grew up in the type of rural lifestyle that JW so aptly described and as such, I wasn't prepared for the sort of reception that I got this time.  Maybe the song is right, "the country ain't country no more".  If that's the case, it is a crying shame.
Mr. Tower, I did think of you while I was headed that way.  I have noticed over the years that you use a lot of Uvalde gravel for material.  I didn't know if you lived in that region or just got your material from there and lived somewhere else.  I drove through Uvalde twice.  I noticed a big gravel quarry north of town and made a mental note to stop and investigate it on the way back.  I then promptly forgot about it until I drove past the drive on my way back.   I'm still hauling out of the Lubbock area (actually Abernathy) so I might get another load down that way.  If so, and you wouldn't be unnecessarily inconvenienced, I would sure like to pick up some nice stone.  I would certainly be much obliged with any assistance you might offer!  Thanks again fellers!  Josh

[cowboy]

I haven't met a landowner yet who's said no but finding the land owner in the first place can be a daunting task for the most part. If just passing through I've had to jump a fence or two, not that I condone that type of behavior . Last one was an old man near Georgetown. I'd make him a arrowhead or two and drink tea and listen to his stories about once a week and he let me clean up all I wanted (that was kind of a lucky strike). But like JW said, theirs others who buy five acres, hang no trespassing signs every hundred feet and paint all the fence post's purple "the TX posted sign".

[JEB]

Please understand this type of hospitality is nationwide.

Wife and I are long distant bicyclists.  We do mostly self contained stuff (carry all our gear on our bikes) type  riding. On our ride across the United States we were in southern Michigan heading east.  We both had to use the corn field so we stopped in front of an old farm house, parked the bikes next to a tree.  Wife had to really go so she went into the corn field across from the house first.  I grabbed the camera and was taking some pictures of the chickens roaming in the front yard of the farm house.  Chris returned to the bikes and off I went.  A few minutes later we were off and got about 2 miles down the road and got pulled over by two sheriff deputies with a police dog.  OK, we are on bicycles.  The deputies approached my wife and I and asked for ID.  I gave him my pictured police ID  so he would know we were not bank robbers on the run .  Asking what we did and he said, you took pictures back at the old farm house and the owners called 911.  We all started to laugh about us being camera criminals.  Of course the deputies knew it was not against the law to take photos of anything from a public roadway but they had to answer the call.

They were both good natured and Chris asked if she could take a picture of me with the two deputies and the police dog.

Just another chapter in our adventures but, we had the law called on us for taking pictures.
 

[4dog]

i gotta say..that aint sooo normal for texans...most i know would look at ya sort of quizzical and shrug then say have at it....that being said....not all texas people are texans...if ya get my drift...ask another rancher ...youll get a different attitude especially if have a point or two on ya.

[JoJoDapyro]

My dad and I were hunting a doe unit one year. It mostly consisted of private land. We found the land owner and got permission to hunt his land (mostly barren fields with no livestock around). We saw him about every morning as we parked and used his ladder up and over his fence, we would say hello, and he would say hi back. One morning after a few hours of hunting we came back to the truck and the sheriff was there. Every 3rd fence post had been painted Pink (Utahs Color) since we had entered. The land owner was there and told the sheriff that we were the ones he called about.  We both got tickets. Since then all persons hunting on private property have to have written permission. I guess too many people ran into the same issue we did.

[Eric Krewson]

Years ago I stopped by a large creek to cut some river cane for bean poles, I was almost certain it was government land. Along comes a sawed off guy with an obvious Napoleon complex and orders me off "his" land, he had a smirk on his face like he was enjoying belittling me. There were plenty of other cars parked along the creek but he didn't approach these others.

Assuming I was trespassing I apologized and went on my way.

We leased 4K acres within a mile of the cane patch I had been run out of. Guess who showed up a couple years later wanting a key to our gates to cross our land to get to a work site on the other side, little Napoleon. I ran the lease and told him to told to go pound sand(not exactly the phrase I used but this is a family site). He had to drive at least ten miles out of his way to get to the work site after I sent him on his way.

Turns out he didn't own the land he ran me off of, it was government land with open access.

[Wolf Watcher]

This issue can be a two way street.  We live on a huge ranch and we have a large group of people that come to camp and road hunt each year.  These people are a problem for everyone including the Game and Fish.  They make you want to run them plumb out of the county!  We have some property on the Northfork of the Shoshoni river leading into the East entrance of Yellowstone and there is no way to keep the trespassers off the land.  So many people have moved into this country that have no idea of what our old ranch hospitality was all about.  We don't mind people using our land if they ask and respect it and we know who is there.  On the other hand I belong to a group called the "Wyoming Disabled Hunters" and I can tell you people open their lands and hearts to us and accommodate our hunters.  I think its sad that our area has lost its ole western people!  Joe

[Dharma]

We have the same thing here in Northern Arizona. People come from some major city that's a crime-ridden dump and then want to change the laws here and turn the place (usually Flagstaff) into another version of the crime-ridden dump they left. Then they buy up land and up go the "No Hunting" signs. If you're so much as stump-shooting on land near theirs, here they come frothing at the mouth about "bloodthirsty hunters". They hate hunters, ATV riders, dirtbike riders, anyone with a weapon of any kind be it a firearm, bow, or even a large knife, the ranchers that lived there since the 1880s, and so on. Then the endless "Letters of the Editor" of the local paper about "Why are people carrying guns?!? I didn't know people could carry guns here. We need a law to ban that!" Then go back where you came from. Hmmmm...maybe that's why crime is off the charts there. No one is armed except the bad guys. But this state has been open-carry for well over 100 years now. We like it this way. There ought to be a sign up at the state borders. "Welcome to Arizona. People here carry guns. If this is a problem, we suggest you find somewhere else to live. How about New York City?"