Dear Mr. Derry,
When I started to read your column this morning I could hardly
believe my eyes when you started your column about receiving a
ticket for parking near Sprig Lake.
I thought to myself some things never change.
Rude riders, parking tickets irk resident
Dear Mr. Derry,
When I started to read your column this morning I could hardly believe my eyes when you started your column about receiving a ticket for parking near Sprig Lake.
I thought to myself some things never change. About twenty years ago the same thing happened to my husband and me. It was on Mother’s Day and with neither of our kids at home anymore we decided to take a hike. When we came there were no horse trailers. At that time in our lives we had a small Volkswagen Rabbit for a car. We parked near the corral but a place where nothing like a regular size car and certainly not a horse trailer could park. When we came back after a delightful hike we found a ticket on our car. Then the pieces of the puzzle started to come into place. As we were hiking, several times these ‘horsemen and women’ would come barreling down those trails like they were in a cowboy movie getting away from the bad guys, like we weren’t even on the trails. This happened several times.
Now I could be dead wrong but I think every time those horse people see a car parked anywhere near that trail they get a ranger there to ticket the car or maybe the ranger gave the horsemen a bunch of tickets or envelopes and said ‘you write your own tickets’. I’m very sure they don’t come all the way from where they are at to write a ticket for one car. Something is very strange about that whole thing and still after all these years they are still doing the same old trick. So much so that every time I read about ‘The horsemen’ wanting more land in our parks I see red. When they opened the Coe Park land down by Bell Station my husband and I went to the opening weekend. The first thing I asked the ranger was, “Are horsemen allowed on these hiking trails”, and the answer was yes. That did it for us. Oh and by the way, the ranger said, ‘oh you don’t like the mess they leave?’. I said no that doesn’t bother me, I can step over that, it’s the outright rudeness and entitlement these horse people have to our trails and parks. These parks belong to all of us.
Thanks for your great column and also your e-edition of the Gilroy Dispatch. I really enjoy it so much.
Collette Rolls, Gilroy
