Letter to the editor

It’s true folks. We’ve been hit here in Longtown again. Before giving you the sad and ugly details let me explain something. Every word here is the truth. For years these folks went by many names: thief, burglar, robber, or just plain, low- down criminal types. But when this element makes as many repeated trips to an area as is happening here in Longtown they get upgraded to TERRORIST.

When you walk out your house in the morning to find items in your truck and yard gone that were there just 10 hours before, when you can’t sleep at night for wondering if your store, barn, or shop building is being broke into, when you’re gone away from home even for a few hours to Walmart or the doctor and can’t think of nothing but getting back home to see if you’ve been burglarized or not, you’ve been terrorized.

 Let me tell you about this latest attack. On Monday, October 4 around 3:30 p.m. these terrorists stopped their vehicle on the shoulder of well-traveled MS State Hwy. 310 in front of my shop, climbed over the locked metal gate, cut the two pad locks off the shop door, then pried the metal door open and commenced to stealing. Tools, drills, wrenches, copper wire, car radiators and more.

And how did I learn about all this? A neighbor driving by called. Where was I? In my pasture less than a quarter mile away fixin’ on my tractor. I rushed up there but “they’ve fled the scene,” as they say on TV.

I called the Panola County Sheriff’s Office and directly here came a squad car. After looking around and verifying “they’ve done fled the scene” the deputy wrote down my information on a pad, turned to me and said, “You need to put up some no trespassing signs to protect your property.”

Now folks, there I stood, looking at traffic going by on the highway not 150 feet from us, my fence with metal gate with chain and double locks, the shop’s two pad locks cut from the door laying on the ground, and the jimmied metal door and the only thing I could say was, “Well I’ll be #@§?ed.”

All these efforts to secure my property when all I needed all along was a no trespassing sign. To add insult to injury I actually had two of them signs in that shop on a work table. If I had only put them up outside all this #%& could have been avoided.

Everything needed to thwart this latest terrorist attack was right there inside my shop. What a shame I didn’t get far enough along in my schooling as a boy to learn the proper words to describe then or now how I felt at that exact moment.  The onlyest thing that still comes to my mind is, “Well, I’ll be #@§?ed”.

Directly another deputy arrived (they both were just super nice and polite), we all conversed a while and they then left (thank goodness they didn’t nasty up anything with no fingerprint dust) but not before the first one reminded  me of the importance of those no trespassing signs.

In my best attempt to be a good, law-abiding person I thanked them and as soon as they left I got those signs off the work table and taped them to the outside of my building. Standing back to admire my handy work however, I failed to get  that feeling of security to rush thru my body that the signs evidently must give to some people. Maybe I need more than just two.

After talking to that neighbor again just after the deputies left, I got a good description of them two terrorists. It dawned on me: I knew who one if not both were. So I phoned back over to the sheriff’s office to pass the information along, hoping these two could be apprehended before disposing of my stuff.

Well, the law today don’t work along those lines I got told. Us victims, we have to go to the courthouse, sign and swear on some papers (that swearin’ part is where I’m at by now) and if that feller is correct then in a week or so the court sends a warrant to some deputy and then …well hell, by then all my stuff has been redistributed as they say in Washington.

And right there is where it all dawned on me. Over the past few years and several such terrorist attacks as this one I’ve lost over $100,000 worth of my personal property to this redistribution thing. Tools, iron work tables, tires and rims, brand new engine blocks, transmissions, two trailers; there is no end to this list.

In the beginnin’ I called the law each time, but I’ve yet to get any of it back so I, like a heap more around here, just quit callin’ the law. It got to be a mutual inconvenience to everybody involved. Except of course the terrorists.

How come I’m just now learnin’ about the power of no trespassing signs? Lets get the word out there to every victim and future victim of these terrorists. A media blitz is in order here about this. A grant to buy enough signs to cover the whole county; naw the whole country, is what’s needed. In the mean time I’ve got two new padlocks and my two signs taped up because I’m doin’ my part to stomp out terrorism here in Panola County.

 Sincerely Yours,

 Herman (I’ll be #@§?ed) Bradley
Longtown