in my case, anyway, they delight in terrorizing me for their own
entertainment. But they seem amused by our rosy view of humanity. Yet . . . they trust us to give them a fair shake. It is touching
in ways that are hard to describe. I don’t know if I can.
They give you things. If you tell the truth, whether you like
them or not, whether you agree with them or not, they pay attention and they respond. They have given me gifts like beautiful
wood carvings. They give us t-shirts, hats. They cut the patches o=
their uniforms and send them. Because the truth is, the Border
Patrol is assaulted and insulted by both the right and the left, and
they sometimes have no one they can trust.
“I don’t care if you hate us,” an agent told me. “What I want
from you is to tell the truth you see here. That’s it.”
item: sheriff raLPh ogden of Yuma, Arizona, looks about ten
feet tall when you meet him. He’s a big ’un already, but he wears
a tall Stetson hat and cowboy boots. It makes him about six foot
ten. He has Wyatt Earp’s mustache, too. He’s so recognizable
that there are Ralph Ogden bumper stickers that show a hat, a
’stache, and a badge. Everybody knows who that is.
