Lee Pitts: The Treaty Of 2013
I’ll try to keep my cows off the highway if you won’t dump your kittens off at the end of my road. We already have a cat
I won’t laugh at your kid for having an earring in his ear if you won’t laugh at mine for having an empty can of Copenhagen in the back pocket of his Wranglers.
I won’t phone and wake you up at four in the morning when I get up if you won’t call and wake me up at eight-thirty at night when I’m asleep.
I will feed and water the wildlife for us all to enjoy but please don’t cut my fences. And hunters, please don’t shoot my cows. (They are the ones that look hungry)
I will slap your kid on the back of his shoulder pads and say, “Nice going,” and urge you to pat mine on the back of his FFA jacket.
Please bear with me when I get lost on your freeways and I apologize for going so slow in my tractor on the farm to market roads.
I’ll take the time to learn more about you if you’ll take a minute to learn about me.
Please don’t laugh at us for having a baby lamb on the hearth and a calf in the bathtub and I won’t snicker at your dachshund’s new mink coat.
I promise to patronize your place of business because you were kind enough to buy my kid’s project animal at the county fair. Thanks again, we do really appreciate it.
I won’t ruin your neighborhood by moving a feedlot in next door to your condominium if you won’t move next to my feedlot and then ask me to get out of town because I stink.
I won’t judge you by what I see on TV or read in newspaper if you won’t judge me by what you read on PETA’s web page.
I will pay all I can afford for the privilege of running my livestock on our federal lands. I will try my best to preserve our public lands for all of us to enjoy if you would please not shoot my water troughs full of holes. The wildlife need a drink too, you know? I won’t scar the landscape by overgrazing if you won’t scar it with your Yamahas and Hondas.
I won’t dump cow manure in your backyard if you would just keep toxic waste dumps out of my backyard.
If you promise not to tear down my corrals for firewood I promise not to steal the towels from Holiday Inn next time we go to the big city. And when we are driving through your fair city I will take the time to point out to my kids all the good things about you and where you live. We will marvel at your skyscrapers and admire you handiwork. When you take your kids on vacation this summer and pass by my place I have hopes that you would do the same. Please point out the miles of post holes dug in rock and how straight the fences are.
I will buy your Chevrolet if you will buy my beef. Let’s all buy products “Made In America”.
I won’t throw my Lone Star bottles on your front lawn if you won’t throw your Bud Light cans in my front pasture.
I will keep dangerous drugs out of your hamburgers and lets both keep them away from our kids… the drugs I mean, not the hamburgers.
I will grant the power companies and telephone companies easements so you can have electricity and make phone calls… but please close the gates.
I won’t think that all of you city people are drug snorting paranoids on welfare, and please don’t think of as illiterate hicks who live off farm subsidies.
I will try to do a better job in understanding you and provide you with the kind of food that you want and need. If you will just let me.