Spork Over the Cash

Million Dollar Spork?

By Ben Briscoe
NewsChannel 10

PAMPA, TEXAS - An area jail is being sued by one of its inmates for one million dollars, but the merits of the complaint are raising concerns about wasting the court's time and your taxes.

The suit was filed in federal court against three gray county jail employees including Sheriff Don Copeland. In the complaint inmate Darren Hathcoat writes by hand that the three defendants ordered, "all the jailers and the civilian kitchen workers to feed me off of styrfoam tray with no utinsels. I had to eat with my bair hands for 11 months."

Because they did not let him use a spork like other inmates... Hathcoat writes the court should, "award me one million dollars for the demorilization and metal anguish."

District Judge John Board says the courts are flooded with civil suits from prisoners. There's so many, Texas has two separate statues on the books about these inmate complaints. If a judge thinks the claim from an inmate is frivolous - they can either dismiss it without a hearing or require the person in jail to pay money up front in case it ends up being a waste of time. But board says judges exercise extreme caution.

---

Not for sure if the quote from the inmate is verbatim with the misspellings or slip-shod editing on the website's part.

Road to the Horizon

The McLaughlin Road, to be precise, south of Miami, Texas, north of Laketon in Gray County.

While my pal was cleaning water gaps, I was taking bad photos.

Here's (a GoogleEarth screenshot) where I was standing when I took the above pic:

The recent rains had washed out the culvert and several others in the vicinity.

When we drove back by on our way home, we startled a doe watering at the "pond". I wasn't quick enough on the trigger to get a photograph of the deer.

Gray Co. Sunset

South of Miami, Texas

Antelopes at Play, No Deer

(click any pic for larger view)

Took these just a few hours ago out on FM road 2391 near Hoover.

There were so many I couldn't get them all in one shot.

Pahrump!

I followed a link on my Panhandle news feed on the side and saw an article about the Fourth is a Fourth is a Fourth and decided to read it. ( couldn't pass up the alliteration, u c )

Pahrump was where the website was based, the town in Nevada. I knew I had heard that word before, but I was thinkin' it was like a father's admonishment at the turn of the last century. "You want to wear something less than 14 petticoats and a hem that will show your ankles? I forbid it! Pahrump!" (although I think I'm getting that mixed up with "Hurrumph!")

And I'm talking about LAST century, not this one. Anyway....

I wondered why the feed indexed a Nevada town (or that muttered, mild, massively mature mad mumble) then saw McLean being mentioned and this nice little paragraph about the Panhandle:

Just a minor personal discovery, but did you know that in the last few years, the Great Plains have shifted west several hundred miles?

Well, that is what it seemed like the other week when I was gone east on vacation. In the past, when I was a mere visitor to the Southwest, I would reach central Oklahoma and think, "Wow, the great wide open."

But now I've been out here, overall, for nearly two years without a break, and driving through the Texas Panhandle, quite a mental turnaround took place. I was hardly past Amarillo when I began noticing more green -- deep green grass up the knees of cattle, tall trees in woodlines and residential areas around, say, McLean. And long before I hit the Sooner State, I felt back amidst the foliage. By the point I passed by Henryetta, the plains were a memory.

I'm wondering if his "mental turnaround" was for the better, or for the worse? Only a Panhandler would concede to either way.

Dawn Grazers

The one looking at me was annoyed that I interrupted his early morning repast. It was still very dark because of the heavy cloud cover.

This one didn't seem to mind at all.



Taken 6/28/07 North of Pampa on Hwy 70

Sunrise Sprinkler

Pivot irrigation system backlit by a glorious Panhandle sunrise.

If you click on the photo and see the larger version, you will probably also notice the ubiquitous telephone lines marring the shot. I hate those things.

Taken 6/28/07 North of Pampa on Hwy 70