Cut and Shoot, Texas

They finally caught up with Francisco Oropesa, the guy who “allegedly” shot five neighbors with his AR-15. He’d been minding his own business, joyfully firing it in his yard, when the victims-to-be asked him to stop so their kids could get to sleep.

The nerve of those neighbors!

Well what would you have done? The poor fellow clearly had no recourse but to stand his ground and turn the gun on them. The shooting done, Orteasa then cut and ran to, where else?

Cut and Shoot.

Yep. You heard right. Cut and Shoot, Texas. Not far from Houston.

Cut and Shoot. Well Dang! If that don’t beat all.

And here I thought Intercourse, PA took the cake for town names. Of course, in the great lone star state, a town could never have a name that implies something so horrible as sex. Think of all those innocent Christian kids who, of course, grow into adulthood all straight, all virgins with absolutely no clue about the birds and the bees. Those Texans proudly protect their kids from such filth.

But guns and shooting? Now there’s a fine wholesome family activity. Who needs sex when the pleasure of firing off round after round in your backyard is such orgasmic joy?

The same week Ortega blew the neighbors away, another guy somewhere in Texas was having some harmless fun in the privacy of his own back yard when one of his bullets happened to stray toward the local college baseball field and hit a player in the chest. Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit! Who could have imagined firing off hundreds of rounds in a residential neighborhood would result in bystanders getting hit?

How in tarnation did they come up with the name Cut and Shoot anyway? Did some guy cut a fellow with his bowie knife and then shoot him to finish off the job? No ma’am. As usual, truth is better than fiction.

The name was adopted in 1912 when the good Baptist folk there had a dispute over the construction of the steeple of a church and who would be allowed to preach there.

Them there Texans take their religion mighty seriously, so what better way to resolve such vital aspects of faith than to have a good old fashioned shootout? Reportedly, a kid said he was going to cut through the bushes and shoot from there. Good thinking, kid. You were truly a credit to your parents and to the community. I’m sure Jesus marked you, right then and there, for a great future in that Texas residential subdivision, also known as Heaven, where you are blissfully firing off your weapon for eternity.

Cut and Shoot. The cut part, I’ll concede is a bit outdated. These days you don’t hear much about people being cut. They still do that once in a while in wimpy places like England where the God given right to own guns is blasphemed. For sure not in Texas. No siree Bob! Not when there’s so much ammo just itchin’ to be used.

Now don’t jump to the conclusion I think Texas is all bad. I have met and even befriended some really fine people from Texas. At the moment the count is up to two, a lovely couple who were raised in Amarillo but had the good sense as Democrats to cut and run before they got cut and shot.

Amarillo. You know, the place where there’s one solitary federal judge, Matt Kacsmaryk. Matt, just by chance, and having nothing to do with the fact that he foams at the mouth at the sound of the word “abortion,” is given jurisdiction over every anti-abortion case in Texas and gets to rule on them on behalf of the entire nation.

Of the many places I have never had an urge to visit, Texas stands out. My aversion to the place originated with Lyndon Johnson’s boneheaded decision to escalate in Vietnam. That dang fool war divided the nation into two feuding camps with a marked resemblance to the two occupying either side of today’s cultural divide. On one side was the gun toting, Bible banging, red blooded, flag waving contingent. On the other the woke folk who naively believe America should live up to all the bloviations and proclamations about freedom and justice the conservative patriots constantly spout off. During Vietnam and with a little help from Norman Mailer’s satirical novel, “Why We Are in Vietnam,” Texas, rightly or wrongly, came to represent to me just about everything I dislike in American culture.

Excepting barbecue, bluegrass music and the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.

As for the Dallas Cowboys themselves, any given Sunday, you can bet your life that I will be cheering for whatever team is playing against them. Even the New York Giants, a team that, as someone who was born and bred in Philadelphia, I have a sacred duty to despise.

So here’s to Cut and Shoot, Texas. No, no, not to actually cut the state of Texas out of the Union or shoot any Texans. Perish the thought.

If anything like that came into your mind as you read this, for shame and kindly keep it between yourself and Jesus.