Both incidents involved my fraternity brothers and alcohol -- no surprise there!
In the first, I was riding in someone else's truck. There were 5 or 6 of us in a couple of different vehicles, out prowling some back roads in the hills, looking for a good place to have a campfire and a tailgate party. This was Arkansas, which (unlike Texas) has huge chunks of public land and national forests. We were waaaaay out in the dark woods at the end of a pig trail, which looked like a good place, so we piled out.
Imagine our surprise 15 minutes later when the lights came on in a house a couple hundred yards away -- a house we hadn't even known was there. A couple of minutes later our "designated spokesman" was playing diplomat with the landowner, while the rest of us tried to shush the self-appointed loudmouth who kept interfering.
Although the gun was never pointed at anyone, there was a nickel-plated SA revolver behind the fellow's right leg the whole time. Apologies were made, and we went on our way.
The second time, we were solidly on private property, with the full permission of the landowner. We were a good mile down a private road, through at least two gates, had a good bonfire going, doing the tailgate thing, nothing loud or boisterous.
All of a sudden, a deputy sheriff pulled up and put on his high beams, spotlight, and blue lights, stepped out of his car and started barking orders. Unlike the first case, this time there were many loud protestations, because we were on private land -- we had a right to be there, but he didn't.
This was an old-school country lawman, and he had no intentions of accepting anything other than immediate compliance with his order that the party shut down and everyone leave -- including the property owner's son, who was part of our group.
The argument stopped when the deputy's son, who looked to be 13 or 14, stepped out of the cruiser and racked the shotgun.
