More Dick

Public Dancing

More Dick

Public Comments

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            The image is fleeting.

            It’s somewhat like a deep sleep dream when you wake up and try to recapture what was so vivid seconds before. There it is and yet there it isn’t. What was it anyway?

            Similarly, was it really Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys on the stage of the dancehall or is the image something I was told about? For sure, there are memories of being in that grand old building. It was a time and place when families brought the kids. Everybody danced. At least for a while. When we got tired, they’d throw a coat of something over us and we’d sack out against the walls behind the folding chairs.

            Cliff was the scene of those once great regional dances. In the chronicles of the great Dick Hays, he had the place ranked as one of the top three whiskey drinking capitals in the world, but that could have been an exaggeration. Dick was always colorful in his depictions of Grant County meanderings. Other experts have suggested it was closer to the bottom of the top 10, but the drinking was on the up and up. It was either in one of the bars or outside the dancehall. Unlike modern day rudeness and portrayals, no drinking, no hats, and no fighting were allowed inside where the kids and the families were having a good time.

            Fighting was a major feature, though.

            There is a story about making a circle outside around the hall and witnessing nine fights going on at one time. If things got too rough, the constable would handcuff the pugilists around the lone light pole in the flat that served as the parking lot.

            When he walked another pair of skirmishers to the pole holding each by an ear, he’d handcuff them to the others already standing there. Pretty soon there’d be a whole team of them handcuffed together talking and trying to light a smoke while they waited for the outcome of their sentence.

            There’s another story about a night when the deputy loaded his car with a bunch to haul off to jail in Silver, but he couldn’t get the old flivver started. That was in the days of cranks and he tossed his crank to a fellow (who will not be named in order to protect the innocent) and ordered him to crank the car. That Cliff cowboy walked around and peered into the car only to recognize most of those fellows were friends so he turned and heaved the crank as far as he could across the road into the night.

            “Crank it yourself,” he said and walked off to the eruption of hoots, laughing, and hollering inside the stalled vehicle.

            Ahaaaa, Bob would have wailed melodically as the band continued to play in the background. It was many hours before the sun would come up when everybody had to be home to do the morning chores.

            There was time for more dancing.

            Public Comments

            At least there was a set of unwritten rules that governed the social structure in those settings. Unelected adults were in charge and there was a whole passel of them to strictly enforce the rule of reasonableness and courtesy.

            There was no judge or committee to resolve most discussions or points of disagreement. The outcome was ruled by prevailing standards and will. That was how it took place, and, fortunately or unfortunately, that is the same standard that exists today.

            The problem is the standards and logic seem to be skewed.

            The example too many of us face is the demand to write public comments regarding proposed revisions governing the BLM grazing program. The current regulations add up to more than 29,000 words. Those rules apply only to federal land ranchers. Not a single producer in Texas or any other state east of the 100^th Meridian even knows what that means.

            If Dick was alive, he’d have a field day with this subject.

In fact, he’d write another poem about ol’ Jose, the viejo, trying to eek a living out of raising three sorry corriente steers while trying to compete against Bob Wills’ cousins down in Texas still wearing their white hats and diamond pinkie rings while smoking their illegal Cuban cigars all-the-while driving cattle buyers bedecked in rare 1000X Jim Spradley full beavers around the homestead before heading back to town to have a noon cap at the local tavern.

            He’d have us all rolling in the floor laughing. I swear I can hear his high-pitched nasal Kansas twang right now!

            How the hell do you measure a comment on a piece of paper, he’d ask. If it’s going to be read in the number one bullsh*t capital of this here entire world, Washington, DC, what fool thinks its going to read in Gila River English?

            He’d be right.

            The outcome will be ruled by prevailing standards and will, but we fear there again will be no attendant (I’m saying nothing about a competent adult) at the table representing our side of this regulatory Armageddon. The weight of the paper alone will be the greatest factor. Most, if not all of us who have gone through this ritual, believe that any comment we make personally is discounted from the onset. We also believe that the forces amassed against us have no objective standing in ruling on this matter.

            The comparison is like one of us being appointed to the national FACS (Fellow, American College of Surgeons) board or asked to make comments on the bylaws of the group. We simply have no background or expertise to make any judgment in a profession and science we have no training or experience.

            They don’t either.

            The majority of the public have no idea of the complexity and demands of our industry, but they are called upon to write comments that will add to the word count of the rule book used against us.

            Dick was right.

Gila River English is no longer spoken. It disappeared when that greatest generation of Gila River adults left us.

            Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “I will forever remember when the BLM official told me a grandmother in Miami Beach has as much to say about the future of my ranch as I do.”