NEW HAMPSHIRE’S FASTEST GROWING ONLINE NEWSPAPER

Things got testy at the farm, but no one got hurt - that much - and no one went to jail

Comment Print
Related Articles
Then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump with Jerry DeLemus, one of his New Hampshire campaign frontmen, and his wife, Susan. (Courtesy photo)

About three years ago I got a letter from some relatives out in Kentucky.

Seems their neighbors were claiming all of a sudden that the land my family had farmed on for generations was theirs.

Well, that started a whole wave of escalating tensions, what with the neighbors stealing some of my family's crops, tearing out tomato plants and knocking down scarecrows.

Course, my family didn't take too kindly to that, so they did some mischief, too, letting air out of the other family's trucks' tires, cutting a barbed wire fence to let a couple of mules loose and cutting a gas line on a farm tractor.

Oh, for sure, there was no violence to speak of but it was getting nastier and nastier.

You might even call it a feud.

Well, one day they called and said the other family was calling in relatives and they was gonna start patrolling the perimeter of what they thought was their property, including the disputed portion of our farm acreage, and trying to intimidate us.

So me and a couple of friends went down to lend our moral support, armed to the teeth of course. I mean, this was the back hills of Kentucky, where there wasn't much law and lots of people were used to fending for themselves. A sturdy, independent lot all around.

Pretty soon there were about 50 or so of us on each side down there, patrolling our properties by day, then getting caught up in a couple of fistfights at the local taverns with our adversaries at night.

One night the local sheriff after bailing us all on personal recognizance after a particularly nasty brawl at the Daniel Boone Pizza House and Tavern told us we'd better cool it or we'd all be in the hoosegow.

Being ornery and from Kentucky, however, we kept on egging each other on for another couple of weeks until finally there was a dustup on a parcel of land where our relatives had been growing corn for a couple of generations.

The other family was down there digging it up by the roots, which drew a rage out of couple of my relatives who put their hands on their holsters and suggested the others leave, which discretion being the better part of valor, they did.

Later that night they sent one of their more centered, younger family members to represent them at a summit with our family patriarch and they resolved to stand down, enact a truce and try to patch things up before anyone got seriously hurt beyond a fractured rib or broken nose like a few of us had suffered in the Daniel Boone Pizza House and Tavern.

It was a beautiful thing. The property dispute had been settled, peace returned and justice had been served, at least we thought so for a while.

Only thing was the neighbors weren't a real family. They weren't a natural family, like a mom and dad and couple of kids.

They were the federal government.

One by one everyone that had gone to help our family was rounded up like dogs, thrown into a federal prison and given eight, 10, 20 or even 30 years; that can be a life sentence if you're getting social security.

No shot was ever fired. No one was hurt, except for the couple of barfights in town.

So why does Rochester's Jerry DeLemus, who was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison on Wednesday for aiding Cliven Bundy in the 2014 Bunkersville, Nev., standoff, get more than seven years for helping his "family." No, the Bundys weren't his real family, but the fact is he considered them like family in a larger sense.

There was a case in Milton a couple of years ago where a man brandished a gun during a tenant dispute and actually discharged it into the air. He got two weeks in jail.

Now I guess if the tenant worked for the Bureau of Land Management he would have gotten seven years three months, but luckily the tenant didn't.

Lastly, I'm sure it happens all the time, but in my short time covering the courts, I've never seen a judge sentence someone to more than what prosecutors called for.

Let's hope President Trump can right a wrong and pardon DeLemus, who is in his 60s.

It was Henry David Thoreau who said "That government is best which governs least." So the converse would be ...

Read more from:
opinion
Tags: 
None
Share: 
Comment Print
Powered by Bondware
News Publishing Software

The browser you are using is outdated!

You may not be getting all you can out of your browsing experience
and may be open to security risks!

Consider upgrading to the latest version of your browser or choose on below: