A man’s land is his own. I’ve said that sentence at more county meetings than I can remember, and I’ve never once had to defend it twice. If you own a piece of Texas, you ought to be able to build on it, live on it and leave it to your children without asking permission from somebody who has never walked it.
Most of my readers are with me there. I want to take the thought one step further, because I don’t think we follow it far enough.
My grandfather built his house down near the creek, close enough to hear the water from his bed. His own father had told him a Texas creek can rise faster than a man can find his boots, and he respected that the way you respect a bull. But he built there anyway, because it was his ground and because the view from the porch was the best in the county. Nobody told him not to. I believe that’s how it should be.
Every so often there’s talk of maps that mark where the water goes, of rules about how close to the bank a man can build, of gauges up the creek and sirens in town that sound when the water starts to rise. I want to say plainly that I respect people who worry about floods. Floods are serious, and nobody should speak of them lightly. But I also believe the creek is a matter between a man and his land, and every map and every siren is somebody else stepping into that conversation.
Think about what a siren really says. It says you can’t be trusted to notice your own creek. It says a stranger in an office knows your water better than you do. My grandfather would have taken that as an insult. He knew that creek by sound. He knew how it talked before a storm and how it went quiet before it came up.
Then there’s the cost. Every gauge and every siren and every culvert has to be paid for, and a good share of that is paid by folks who live up on the hill and never see the water. I don’t think it’s right to ask them. A man who builds by the creek takes on the creek. That’s the bargain, and it’s an honest one.
I know a man who sleeps lightly every spring because he built low. He says he would rather lose some sleep than lose his say. I admire that. A little worry is the price of standing on your own ground. That is the say I mean to protect when I vote for the Republican for Senate this fall. My impression is that the other side would like more gauges up the creek and more sirens in town, and I would rather keep listening for the water myself.
I still have my grandfather’s place. I sleep in the same room he did, and I keep my boots by the bed. When the creek comes up, I’ll know. I just hope I’m awake.
D. M.