By now everybody has heard that the sheriff of Letcher County in Kentucky has shot dead the local judge. I had several friends from that county and did some consulting work there and in bordering counties. All the folks there were quite nice to me but it was real change of scenery to see some people strolling down the sidewalk in Whitesburg with holtsered weapons as if that was how one dressed for downtown. Maybe it was necessary there. I’m sure there is vastly more gun violence in urban areas but in Eastern Kentucky they are sure prepared for anything. I worked with a good friend who was from a town not far from Whitesburg. He was an ardent liberal and told me I would be surprised at how many people from Eastern Kentucky had very progressive views. “We do love our little pea-shooters though.” I guess so. He once took me by his old homestead in the holler where his dad kept his pistols on top of the fridge, a usual Kentucky gun locker.
A co-worker of mine told me how he and his wife liked to walk in evenings in the foothills near the Kentucky River. He assured me that both of them carried their pistols on their walk.
I told the story here before that I was working late in the courthouse at Irvine in Estill County. The county Judge/Executive had asked me to help him with something, I forget what. But I do remember that I joked with him that I wanted to get out of town before dark because the people here are armed to the teeth. He said, “well you are sure right, and that’s why I always carry this in my gun in my pocket.” There in the hall of the courthouse he pulled out a small pearl-handled pistol from his coat pocket and raised in high so to make a good show of it.
In another county, the judge asked me to please find a job for an old friend who was having a time of getting back to work. The man had a felony record and was recently released from prison. He was apparently pretty well connected politically but employers were just reluctant to hire him. I did have a job for him and put him to work. Of course, I asked him what exacly he had done. He told me that he found out that a man had been schtupping his wife on the sly. And of course he was obligated to shoot the man dead. He had confronted the man on the post office steps. “He drew on me but I shot first.” Actually he said “he drawed on me.” So this cost him ten full years in the lock-up.
As it happens the victim was the postmaster and so the trial was in Federal court. His political friends could get him a job after prison, but they couldn’t spring him from a Federal pen. On the good side, he proved to be a right good employee.
Two Strikes 