COMPLAINING TO THE JUDGE 

I was inside the city hall talking to Thomas, the fire chief, and another other guy when one of the citizens drove up real fast and parked in front of the city hall, dust flying from the truck when he parked.  He got off, walked to the city hall, opened the door, looked at me and said, “I want to talk to you.” He signaled me with his finger.  He turned around and went back to his truck.

Tomas makes a face like, ut oh. Both guys went and positioned themselves in front of the window, looking out the window to see what was going to happen.  At that time, I was wearing my gun.  That was outrageous like in the gunslingers.  Here’s the mayor of the city wearing a gun.  But I was also the Municipal Judge and according to the law, it’s allowed for the judge to wear a gun.  So I opened the door and walked out fairly fast towards him.  He was by the truck, he had the door open.  He was waiting there.  So I walked real fast towards him. 

I noticed that he noticed the gun.  His sight went down towards the gun.  He noticed the gun and his attitude changed.  He changed right away.  I said, “Yeah, may I help you?”  “Uh, yeah, I was wondering...”  I had sent him a letter from the Municipal Court because another man said he owed him some money and he hadn’t paid

So that was going to be his complaint, why did I send him the letter.  Well, he didn’t complain.  He just asked me about it and I told him, “Yeah, he says you owe him so much.”   He kept looking at me and looking at the gun.  I was known there as being a little wild.   So he goes, “I’ll straighten that out with him.  I’ll talk to him and straighten it out.”   I said, “Okay, that’s all.  That was the only reason I sent you the letter from the Municipal Court.”   He said, “Do you like watermelons?”  I said, “Yeah, I like watermelons.”  He said, “I’ll send one of my kids with a watermelon over to your house.”   I said, “Okay.”   He said, “Thank you.”

I walked back in and Thomas said, "You sacred the heck out of him when he saw you walk out with a gun.  He thought, oh boy, the Mayor is wearing a gun."  I stayed at the city hall for awhile more and then went home.  And when I drove up, he was at Beto’s house, the Mayor Pro Tem, which was right next door to our house.  Beto told me later that he asked Beto, “Is he allowed to wear a gun.”  Beto said, “Oh yeah, he showed me the law, he can do it.”  I had showed the law to Beto and to Sheriff Avant.  I found out about that at the Municipal Judge training.   They told us, “You know, you’re allowed to wear a gun if you want to.” 

He never sent the watermelon.

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