Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [45]
I told them, “No! Damn it, we’re on the fourteenth hole and I’m playing like crap. I’m not leaving until my game gets straightened out!”
Then I told them, “Guys, how come every time one of these fruitcakes comes out of the woodwork, I have to run and hide? This time it’s changing. When we’re done here, we’re going to my house. I’m getting my Sig Sauer P-226 handgun. I have many boxes of Black Talon bullets sitting in my gun safe.”
(The minute the announcement came that the sale of these bullets was being banned, I’d gone to my gun shop and cleaned the shelves. I would tease my security, “I’ve got more firepower than you.” Law enforcement isn’t allowed to use Black Talon, but, as a civilian, you still can.)
I said, “We’re done being the hunted, boys. Starting today we’re the hunters. We’re gonna find this guy. And when we do, I’m gonna get him on the ground, and screw my nine-millimeter right into his ear. And I want the press to come and get a photograph of this. We’re gonna send a message. That way, the next nut case who wants to try this is gonna know what the consequences are.”
Oh my God, my troopers were panicked! As governor, I’m their commander in chief. They have to do what I say. I heard later from my friend Tony—who’s still doing security for the new governor—“You should have seen the state public safety headquarters that day, when you said you were going after that guy. The brass were all going crazy, saying, ‘Now what do we do?’”
I proceeded to finish my round of golf. Fortunately for the troopers, I finished strong. I think I parred three of the last four holes, and felt pretty good about myself again. Thanks to the game of golf, I simmered down and came to my better senses.
And they caught the guy later that afternoon. They nailed him because this bozo even put out his intentions over the Internet. How dumb can you be? That’s worse than leaving a fingerprint. Threatening a public official with violence is a felony, and he ended up serving time.
I had just gotten tired, after the incessant threats, of feeling like the hunted. My SEAL came out in me. We’ve got an old saying, “We don’t get mad, we get even.” And we make no bones about being the hunters.
“Can we quit talking about this now?”
I can tell these particular “fond memories” are making Terry a little anxious, so we begin reminiscing about the first time we went together to Mexico. It was a trade mission, my first one as governor, in the summer of 2000. “Honey, remember when we went to the famous Corona brewery, and found out that all the beer is made with Minnesota corn?” I ask her.
“Well, sure,” she says, “Minnesota has the best corn, and Mexico knows it.” They’d shown us pallets of corn, all with Minnesota stamps on them, which come down by train. So every time I drank a Corona, I thought, it might have the Mexican lime, but there’s also a little taste of Minnesota.
One of the other highlights had been attending an authentic Mexican rodeo in Guadalajara. The charros, their cowboys, are unique, especially when it comes to calf roping. Our American cowboys rope the calf, then jump off the horse, run over and flip the calf and tie him up, and get all dirty in the process. The Mexican cowboy never leaves the saddle and accomplishes the same thing.
I was so pleased when they allowed my First Lady to pick any horse and ride it in the rodeo. Terry chose a beautiful Palomino. It was remarkably well trained, and she was out there spinnin’ the circles with her dark hair flying. Traditionally in Mexico, women don’t ride the charros’ horses.
“I think they were pretty impressed with your horse skills,” I say to Terry. “Also the fact that you would ride, and I wouldn’t.”
“Well, you’re not a horse person,” she says.
“Yup, you can out-ride me any day, babe. But put us on Harleys, and I’ll