Nothing pleases a Texan more than to hear a non-native catch the gist of what we’ve had drilled into our native bones since the day we were born. Sgt. Mom of the Daily Brief does a fine job of demonstrating that on a regular basis. It’s great, (re-)reading stuff I knew once through the eyes of someone making it a study:

The Rangers of that time were nothing like their present-day iteration… an elite State law-enforcement body. And under Hays’ captaincy, they became more than just the local mounted volunteer militia, called up on a moments’ notice to respond to a lightening fast raid on their settlement or town by Indians or cross-border bandits. They took to patrolling the backcountry, looking specifically for a fight and hoping to forestall raids before they happened, or failing that, to track down raiding parties, recover loot and captives, and to administer payback. There was only one abortive attempt to have them wear uniforms.

The fun part, for me, is catching up on stuff that I’ve heard before from old-timers. Being born in nineteen-and-sixty, I had the pleasure of having two granddads who’d grown up in the early parts of this century in this state, and they had granddads, of course, who told them stories. Being outdoorsmen, of course, they were often accompanied by other men who shared their taste in horses, guns, cattle & whisky, and so, the tales were often spun ’round the campfire.*

These kinds of stories, told of the men who knew the men who knew the men who rode under Jack Hays, were, to say the least, a shaping force for a youngster. I don’t claim anything but common dirt with these heros, but I like to think I’ve learned something from them, and I’m not so sure that would have happened had I been born elsewhere.

* Hyperbole alert — by the time I was out hunting with these wondrous geezers, they were all quite damn glad to have a tin roof over their head or a floor of wood to lay their mats on, and thought it nothing short of crazy to build a campfire when there was a perfectly fine barn that could be heated by God’s own wonders, propane and white gas. Hell, chopping wood was anathema, what with chain saws. Still, the tales told, over a glass of shine in the glare of a Coleman lantern with a deck of cards on the table, were nice. They might have been all lies, but they were my lies, and they always will be.