Ladder Combs

When I was a yonker in East Tx, we all lived back in the sticks with town just a distant urban mystery.

Don't know how many people had locks on the exterior doors of their home, but I do know that absolutely no one I knew ever locked up their house. Not during the night. Not when they left on a trip. Never.

My Mom's Dad (Papuh) had a hasp lock his front door. One time he put a padlock on that door when he left the state. Thing is, he drove a nail beside the lock and put the key on the nail. I ask why and he said, "The lock will keep an honest man out of my house, the key will keep a crook from tearing up my door."

Hard to argue with old time country logic. Plus, if he had caught anyone triflin', he would have put a knot on their head so tall they would have to climb a ladder to comb their hair.

In all the days of my youth, I don't remember anyone ever reporting anything stolen from their house. Part of that is because we were so dang poor that we didn't have anything worth stealing. The other part was that it was a different time and a different moral code.

Oh yeah, folks would naturally stomp a mud hole in you if you diddled in such a way. A man would have to have more guts than you could hang on a fence if he chose to take from another's family.

The point of this rambling is that today we had a steel "safe room" bolted to the slab of the bunkhouse we are building on the ranch. We added this costly "luxury" in part so we could step in when a storm threatens to level the earth and all in our vicinity.

Nother part of it is that my bride wanted a sanctuary in the event some immoral varmit tries to break into our house. I go along with that part too. I don't want my better half hit with ricochets while I'm pumping lead into the ignorant son-of-a-bitch with the foolish audacity to enter my house without a proper invite.

I guess a lot of things have changed in this old world, but I confess to wishin' everyone could still leave their house unlocked and sleep sound at night.