Tuesday, May 08, 2012

'Let Yankees adopt such low callings ...'

Thanks to readers who had kind things to say, in the comments and via email, about my father's recent award. My brother has written about the ceremony, and I put up an item on my personal blog, Huevos Rancheros, ruminating on some of the family history discussed at the event. See "Let Yankees adopt such low callings: Reflections on the making of a southern lawyer."

10 comments:

ckikerintulia said...

Your story of Arch Sneed is great. Now if I can just get by those anti-robot letters! They're not that legible.

ckikerintulia said...

Hey I'm not a robot! Who'd a thunk it?

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Yankees, don't we get our ideas from the New York Times?

Gritsforbreakfast said...

Thanks, Rev, I know when we're talking XIT we're getting up there near your turf!

I know folks hate the captchas, but if you saw the volume of comment spam it stops you'd see why it has to be there. Sorry!

2:44: More commonly, I'd say, they occasionally get ideas from me. Who is this "we" and what do you fantasize is this blog's connection to the NY Times?

Anonymous said...

The source that's cited tells it all. Whether it's the Washington Post, NPR, NYT or the rest, the cited source shows where the person's head and heart is.

Gritsforbreakfast said...

Have you done some source analysis, 3:32, to tell who I cite most? I bet I much more often cite the Statesman, the Dallas News, the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Tribune, and other Texas outlets, if you were to quantify it.

Also, maybe for numnuts like you the "source shows where the person's head and heart is." For some of us interested in discovering probative facts instead of just confirming one's own ideology, however, sometimes one goes to whatever source is supplying the best information. Sometimes that's the NY Times, but on Texas stuff, typically not.

Anonymous said...

I grew up on Sneed Street, in Tyler.

Funny.

Jason

ckikerintulia said...

Yeah, Scott, the old XIT was in 10 counties along the western edge of the Panhandle-South Plains, stretching from Dallam County way down south I don't know how far. Probably had some territory in counties that did not border New Mexico Territory, or whatever they called New Mexico before statehood in 1912.

A lot of the XIT fencing was ribbon wire, a thin flat piece of metal probably 3/16" wide with barbs tied around it every 6" or so. Part of XIT fencing may have been with more conventional barbed wire, as they had to replace fence in the latter years of XIT.

Lots of interesting history in this part of the state. General Mackenzie slaughtered the Comanche's horses about 10 miles SE of where I was born and grew up, after he surprised the Comanche in Palo Duro Canyon. The Indians got away on foot, but Mackenzie rounded up their horses, drove them about 20 miles south to the head of Tule Canyon, and shot them, leaving the Indians afoot to walk to the reservation near Ft. Sill, Oklahoma territory, about 150 miles east of Palo Duro. I think this was in September, 1874, a couple of years before Custer blustered his way into death at Little Big Horn.

But Palo Duro and Tule Canyon effectively ended any threat from the Comanches, and the Panhandle soon became populated with ranchers, and a couple of decades later sodbusters. My dad came to Swisher County in 1902 as a farmer and small rancher.

Anonymous said...

Bad news for Beto Halfway House in Mcallen, Texas. They are closing us down !!!

Anonymous said...

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