LogFAQs > #961946622

I was sheriff of this county
when I was 25 years old.
Hard to believe.
My grandfather was a lawman.
Father too.
Me and him was sheriffs at the same
time, him up in Plano and me out here.
I think he's pretty proud of that.
I know I was.
Some of the old-time sheriffs
never even wore a gun.
Folks find that hard to believe.
Jim Scarborough never carried one.
That's the younger Jim.
Gaston Boykins wouldn't wear one
up in Comanche County.
I always liked to hear
about the old-timers.
Never missed a chance to do so.
You can't help but compare yourself
against the old-timers.
Can't help but wonder
how they'd have operated these times.
There's this boy I sent to the electric
chair at Huntsville here a while back.
My arrest and my testimony.
He killed a 14-year-old girl.
Paper said it was a crime of passion...
...but he told me there
wasn't any passion to it.
Told me he'd planned to kill somebody
for as long as he could remember.
Said if they turned him out,
he'd do it again.
Said he knew he was going to hell.
Be there in about 15 minutes.
I don't know what to make of that.
I surely don't.
The crime you see now,
it's hard to even take its measure.
It's not that I'm afraid of it.
I always knew you had to be willing
to die to even do this job.
But I don't want to push
my chips forward and go out.
...and meet something I don't understand.
A man would have
to put his soul at hazard.
He'd have to say, "OK.
I'll be part of this world. "
tl;dr