Letter from Slim Wolfe
Cynicism – August 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Guilty as charged, Charlie Green: oozing cynicism, defeatist prose, endless carping, flinging little resentful pellets of dung at the zookeeper … it’s my mantra, my rosary, my way of not embracing the real defeat. Too cynical even for the typographer, who changed “Bush Wasteland and Dunghill” into “Bush Wetland and Dunghill.” What other word but “defeated” describes a species which we agree has an exponential curve in weaponry but is stuck in a 4000-year rut of empire based on human sacrifice? What other words but “cynical and defeated” describe your notion that we’re victims of some calendar cycle, the same way some think we’re victims of externally-imposed sin?
Since we’re finding cynical defeat in the July issue of Colorado Central, I’d say the Camp Hale question leads us to a toss-up: Is it more cynical to think mother nature can’t adjust to the altered route of the river? Or more defeatist to think that the honor and glory of the 10th Mountain vets depends on the straightened channel? As for Carbonate Hill, I see value there. I’d call it sort of a Holocaust Museum and monument to the muscle of man, beast, and the muscle-brained tycoons of the time, but for real historical accuracy why not install a couple of old grizzle-beards like Ed and myself in an old shack so the visitor can see us getting terminally ill on the orange water we dip out of the creek….
The grand prize for cynical defeatism in July’s issue, however, goes to the cowgirl who spent all of page two pretending to convince us that her identity was threatened by anyone who uses the word “ranch” to describe something other than a 160-plus-acre holding inherited from welfare-land-grant-pioneers. Grow up, woman, you and your stock won’t come down with the scours just because your stupid pride has been trespassed by more recent arrivals, even if they are a bit less intrepid. Pride is inherently defeatist because it implies that the other is less than the self. The same applies to pride of nation. We’re all made out of the same stuff and we all have the same destination. (Peggy Godfrey’s recent poem on newcomers is more to the point.)
Thanks anyway, Charlie, for the gentle nudge. Maybe the turn of the Mayan epoch will, as you hope, bring us into harmonic convergence or harmonica convention or some other boon from on high. I guess I’ve got an attitude, having been raised in the belly of Dante’s Inferno in a cauldron of the wretched of the earth (though Saigon and Baghdad have since surpassed New York in that department). Maybe I’m afraid if they can clone enough right-wingers with big vehicles down in those Samoan sweatshops and smuggle enough of them in on Wal-mart containers, they may get the high court to invalidate the year 2012 and do an end run around the Mayan prophecy. Maybe, as you say, we’re just a blip, but we’re the only blip we’ve got and I kind of wish we could be better at it.
Slim Wolfe
Villa Grove
