ANTIQUALOPE MIGRATION APPROACHES
ROUND TOP

AREA BRACES FOR THUNDERING HORDE

Around Round Top - "Let’s see, I’m looking for a bung hole drill and a Chippendale, a steamer trunk to hold my junk, some object d’art and mason jars and Texas stars and AAAAAaaaaaaghhh! I can’t take it any more. There’s too much stuff. How can a person decide. I’m loosing my mind!"

This obviously manic diatribe was overheard by our investigative reporter during the last outbreak of a strange form of animal behavior that is indigenous to this area. Twice a year, thousands upon thousands of obsessive antiqualopes begin a massive, lemming-like migration to the hills and dales of this three county area. Round Top, Warrenton, Shelby, Carmine and all points in between are suddenly swamped with the maddened, money-slinging herds as they swarm from booth to booth in strange and frenzied searches.
"The interesting thing about this particular migration," suggest Doctor Wilbert Segue of the Center for Migratory Studies, "...is that each individual seems to be on its own individual search for sustenance. In most species that exhibit this type of behavior, we see a cooperative spirit in the hunting and foraging. With this migration, individuals sneak off furtively with their kills, refusing to share with others of their kind...it’s very unusual."
Booths have been set up all over the area to capture the migrating Antiqualope’s green by-products. Wildlife observers flock to the area and can be seen rocking on porches drinking German soda water.
Dr. Segue says some strange biological clock brings the animals to our region two times a year without fail.
"It is still one of the wonders of nature... how does the arctic tern know when to begin its flight...what do the caribou hear that brings on their migration? Here it is the same pattern. Every year on the first weekend of April and the first weekend of October these beautiful animals swarm to this one part of Texas. They root and dig and hunt for a few days...then suddenly you wake up one morning and ...they ‘re gone."
Local aboriginal peoples rely on this migration for much of their sustenance. The antiqualope’s by-products are used to make a wide variety of items necessary to the health and happiness of these primitive tribesmen.
One such group, the B & B Clan, seeks to attract antiqualopes back into the area with pleasant accommodations and special foods designed to charm the migratory animal into returning to Fayette county outside the main migratory period.
Says one clan chieftain, "Our tribe loves the antiqualope and would like to see herds of them foraging on our hunting grounds year round."


ANTIQUALOPE DROVERS SET FOR BIG HERD

(From April '96 issue)


Round Top - Nobody pays much attention to a poor antiqualope drover according to Willie "Suds" Gaspacho, a gnarled old antiqualope gaucho who has worked the “lopes” all over the country for the last thirty years.

"Them cowboys get all the attention. What’s the big deal with that ridin’ and ropin’ and buckin’ and stuff...them wimps ought to try unloading a three hundred pound sideboard in a drivin’ rain with some screeching collector breathing down your neck. That’ll show ya who’s the real man."

Antiqualope drovers are a rough hewn bunch. Hardened by the elements and the tongues of upscale suburbanites, these solitary drovers, male and female, are a stoic lot.

"When the herd starts to move, so do we" says Suds. "You only got a few days to make your killin’ so you got to get while the gettin’ is good."

Local wildlife & environmental groups take a dim view of antiqualope hunting. Dr. Wilbert Segue of the Citizens for the Protection of Indigenous Antiqualopes cautions that "...these herds can be diminished by excessive predation. Why can’t people just leave these beautiful animals alone and let them browse in their natural manner. Undue pressure on their grazing areas and low quality feedstocks could cause a catastrophic drop in their numbers."

"It happened with the buffalo and the passenger pigeon...what makes you think it can’t happen here?"

Suds feels differently. "What do them highbrows know? They ain’t sittin’ out here all day in the hot sun tryin’ to pull down a meal. If God didn’t mean for us to get $800 for a sideboard with a busted leg, he wouldn’t have invented the Suburban and the Jeep Cherokee”"

Colorful statements like these are part of the craft of the antiqualope drover. He must wear funny hats and talk in primitive dialects to attract the shy and wily creatures. It requires patience.

"Sometimes we’ll drive the ‘lopes’ from dawn to dusk with ne’er a bite to eat...it’s a hard life...but when you get that big one...it’s all worth it”"


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