Some things never change
When I was a young game warden working the Port Mansfield area, my partner Bruce and I got into a very scary boat chase one night with some illegal commercial fishermen out of Mexico. Before we got in full chase mode, Bruce keyed the radio mic to the main TPWD law enforcement channel and stated where we were and what we were about to do, knowing that we wouldn’t be able to monitor any responses to our call until the chase was over. I guess he just wanted someone to know where to start looking in the event something bad happened. But lucky for us, a couple of game wardens some 50 miles away heard the call, dropped what they were doing, and came running. It made for some story after it was all said and done.
Stories are kind of a thing with game wardens. Whether it’s on the side of the road at the county line, standing around a percolating pot of coffee behind a ranch gate, or sitting around a table in the back corner of a greasy spoon, it’s been a time-honored tradition for game wardens to gather up, catch up, and tell stories. And even though there may be a fair amount of artistic license taken with the tales told and some of the subject matter has changed, game wardens still gather, even years after they’ve retired.
Last week I had a couple of opportunities to sit down and break bread with some other retired wardens.
I was on the younger side of those in attendance.
Maybe that’s why I found myself, just as I had when we were all younger, mostly listening.
Back in the day, the topics of discussion at these gatherings centered around which outlaws were doing what, where they were doing it, and how we were going to go about trying to catch them. A fair amount of good-nat ured braggadocio about who alr eady got caught where and by whom would be involved as well, especially if there was someone within earshot who hadn’t caught anybody in a while. Be mindful of who’s on first – there’ll be a test later.
Some of the same stories told then are told now, but with a lot more interruptions that include questions like, “when was that?” and “man… what was that guy’s name?” Those questions are usually answered minutes later by the person asking them after a declaration of, “I’ll think of it here in a minute…” Also, there is usually talk of how good the guys and gals wearing the badge today have it, with all their state-of-the-art equipment and better scheduling and pay. Nobody really complains about all that though. It’s a fact that game wardens back in the day worked all the time, especially during hunting season. There were no weekends or holidays off. Overtime pay wasn’t a thing. All overtime hours were considered “downtime” because if you were just sitting in your vehicle for hours waiting for something to happen, you really weren’t doing much, were you? Yeah, right whatever. Nobody cared, though. It was all big fun; sometimes, too much fun.
But some of the newer stories told by retired game wardens aren’t so fun. They start off something like, “I talked to old soand-so’s wife the other day, and she said he’s not doing so well since he got out of the hospital,” or something similar. Whatever it is or however bad it may be, you can bet that the same guys (and later, gals) who looked after each other and came running when called back in the day are still looking out for each other now. Yep, some things never change.
