h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

No, not the baseball team, the lawmen. Here is a true story:

QUOTE

1878: Texas outlaw Sam Bass gathers a new gang at Denton 4 months after losing companions in a fight through Kansas and Missouri following a heist of $65,000 in gold and other valuables from a Union Pacific train at Big Springs, Neb. The Bass gang robs four trains near Dallas, but Bass is betrayed to the Texas Rangers, trapped while trying to rob a bank at Round Rock, and mortally wounded at age 26.

END QUOTE

The popular story is that someone called Ranger headquarters about a big riot going on. The boss said he'd send a Ranger. The caller said it was a pretty big riot, maybe a bunch or Rangers would be best. The boss replied, "One riot, one ranger."

An aside - if Round Rock, Texas sounds familiar, it probably is - it's the home of Dell Computer. I guess with their income, a safe bank was needed.

Thanks for that one


Dancer

You're welcome, glad you liked it, Ma'am.

But I'm a mister...

Don't worry, though, alot of people make the mistake to assume a Dancer is male...


Dancer

But I'm a mister...

Don't worry, though, alot of people make the mistake to assume a Dancer is female...


Dancer (Now corrected)

Woops ...

So, you're welcome, gald you liked it, podnuh.

I like "One Riot, One Ranger"

Perhaps America could learn something from that: "One Megalomaniac, One Marine"?

-Lucinda

Unfortunately, I think the world has gotten beyond the abilities of the Texas Rangers. A sad state of affairs, and I am from Oklahoma, a huge rival of Texas (in a good year).

P. S. Just to be clear, the Texas Rangers are a VERY good law enforcement group. I'm not joking, for once

Just so you know, Steve, the Texas Rangers don't exist anymore. They were replaced by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Here's a few more things people ought to know.

The Rangers got their start fighting Comanches. They were mostly cutthroats from Tennessee who had one heck of a time dealing with those mounted warriors until the illustrious Sam Colt started manufacturing revolving pistols in Patterson, New Jersey. He sold a load of them to the Texas Navy. (Yes, Texas had a navy because it was a republic until 1846 and liked to engage the Mexicans in sea battles in the Gulf.)

Colt's revolving pistol was a five shooter of .36 caliber. Some of them eventually ended up in the hands of the Rangers who found them very good medicine for dealing with Comanches. In one fight they are said to have killed half an 80 man war party. From then on the Texan's love for the five shooter, later six shooter, was seemingly unending.

He packed it on the cattle drives into Kansas after the Civil War when most Texans were dirt poor, living off of rustled cattle and rye whiskey. But with his sixguns, the Texan felt like a knight in shining armour, and, unromantic truth be known, he probably acted like one too.

Unfortunately, he was usually a lousy shot, especially when drunk, which was most of the time, so even a terrifying Texan like John Wesley Hardin could be scared britchesless by the likes of Wild Bill Hickok, a cutthroat from Missouri who could actually hit what he was shooting at.

Even so, the Texas Rangers gained an enviable reputation over the years, not entirely due to typical Texan brag, but that would have been a good part of it. There was a certain determination that they often exhibited as well as a cold blooded, calculating, homicidal attitude, sort of like Frank Hammer showed when he and his posse gunned down Bonnie and Clyde from ambush in 1934.

You really can't blame the Rangers I guess because they were often dealing with other cold blooded, calculating, homicidal Texans on the wrong side of the law, like Bonnie and Clyde, or Wes Hardin, and even some who were allegedly on the right side of the law, like Old John Selman, who was gunned down in an alley by a Texas Ranger, in self defense of course, from behind a fence.

Unfortunately, Selman was unarmed when searched subsequent to his demise, so somebody had to come up with a quick story for the press that some souvenaire hunter had taken his gun because it was the one Selman had used to gun down the terrifying Wes Hardin.

That was another case of self defense in which Selman claimed he shot Hardin in the back of the head because Hardin had seen Selman in the barroom mirror and everbody knew Hardin was quick as greased lightning with the guns he typically carried butt down in the inside chest pockets of his frock coat. (Hardin was a lawyer. That's why he wore a frock coat. That was the professional business attire of the day. He got his degree while doing hard time in the Huntsville Penitentiary, one of the first "jailhouse lawyers" on record.)

I hope this has provided a little local color, if not historical clarification, about the illustrious Texas Rangers that maybe goes a bit beyond what you might have read about in Lonesome Dove.

I should add that probably the Rangers' greatest contribution to the great Republic, excuse me, State, of Texas was the dispossession and near destruction of the Comanche people leaving Texas free for the depredations of crooked politicians, murderous, drunken cowboys and larcenous oilmen, who also dealt cocaine on the side. So, as you can probably tell, nothing much has changed.

For yet another view, go here:

http://www.texasranger.org/

The Texas Rangers do exist today as you can see by following the above link. It's part of the Texas Department of Public Safety. It's one of three investigative arms or the DPS. It handles major felony cases.

Well, I'm certainly pleased to learn the gang has survived to investigate major felonies. One might assert their very existence is a major felony, however, I doubt very much that anyone cares. I know I don't.

Real Texas Rangers are really offensive and hardly deserve approbation. They deserve what they've given through the years, destruction. With any luck some of us might live to see it.

Nope, I really don't care.