Letter from Clay Warren
Mountain Life – October 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors,
I knew that the humidity from all the rain and hot weather was going to get to some people, but I had not realized it was so much warmer and wetter to the southeast as to elevate such a crop of grouches and bring the PC storm troopers up like crocus in the spring. I had thought Erik Moore’s Vicarian piece [Aug. 99] would elicit some criticism for its frank truthfulness. Little did I even imagine any criticism would come at me for seemingly innocuous commentary or that anyone would dare criticize a burro chaser in print. I do make note of the fact that humans are the only predators whose chosen foods are the adult version, if one excludes veal and stealing eggs, rather than the young as Mr. Walker points out.
To address a more personal issue than whether or not one should always shoot a coyote given the opportunity, I shall respond to the comments of Mr. Brown which I do at the risk of the editors having written “the Wetmore letter” themselves. Their possible motive being to stir up a fight and thus increase the static circulation they were complaining about two months ago. A defense to this oblique accusation might be that they don’t need to make up criticism of my writing, there is plenty of it out there already. However Mr. Brown, I don’t give a damn who or what you’re descended from (please remember where the Scopes Trial was held) even if you are in line with the original Rocket Boy himself or one of his friends. I have deep roots back there as well as friends and family.
Some of my family from Virginia were given land in what is now East Tennessee in return for service in the Revolution. If I choose to write like some of them still talk, there is nothing in your subscription agreement that requires you to read anything I produce. For instance I don’t read Carl Rowan in the Denver Post because he is an outright hypocrite on the subject of gun control. Nor do I read Cal what’s-his-face, because if he was a true disciple of Christ, he’d keep his prayers to himself, which he doesn’t. The only negative reflection on people with an accent is in the ears of the listener, certainly not in the speaker’s mind. Never mind that country story tellers with accents are a tradition where I grew up, people have a right to be themselves — short of practicing human sacrifice, physical or emotional — if they so choose.
Political Correctness has its limits and they are way downstream in this discussion. I believe I have already addressed in last month’s submission those who choose to imitate my use of dialect, which I had deliberately chosen for emphasis. However, just to keep the facts straight, I currently live in town on less than a quarter acre, but my former “ranchette” was 28,000 plus acres south of Vya, Nev. It has about a hundred miles of fence and took at least three days on horseback to ride, (more if the mustangs and antelope had gotten in the act), which I did twice a year usually by myself. I am a fiscal conservative, gun nut (which Mr. Brown omitted from his critique), who has been under fire nearly a dozen times (three of those in the US), who thinks Liberalism’s 1% good is heavily outweighed by its other 99% ill effects on society. As a governing philosophy it is as dead as Communism, even without the excesses of Lenin and Stalin. Yes, I am a “character” and am good looking too, in an o
I don’t believe socialism has any merits in as diverse a society as ours and I think its advocates will in the end screw up our liberty and ultimately the American dream. However, I only abhor pretentious “left-wing intellectuals,” not those with the real education, experience and intelligence to see the humor, even if they are the butt of it, in what I produce for scant reward. I like ballet and despise opera, but being tone deaf it’s all Greek or Italian to me anyway.
If that makes me “right wing” so be it, but I decline the label myself.
Anyone who has read the last three years of my stuff, would know all this without me having to reiterate it, which causes me no small amount of embarrassment. To be blunt, I wouldn’t even have started contributing to the Colorado Central citizen dialogue if Riff Fenton hadn’t criticized the Winter Skeeter Hunt over in Saguache in the first place and you’d know that too! Well maybe the “growth issue” letter was the real start. Finally I don’t think abortion is anybody’s business but the woman’s and her doctor. It sure as hell isn’t the government’s or the next door neighbors’ business. We eliminated chattel in this country in 1864 and that applies to women too. They ain’t the brood mares of polite society.
If one bothers to check the archives (http://www.coloradocentralmagazine.com) of this magazine fully, one can visualize without too much help, the reasons I chose to use a pen name. I may lack common sense, but not courage and I have the scars to prove it. Not being financially independent, I have to do business with politicians and officials of local governments, among others, who might not appreciate comments on their lack of appropriate clothing at times. And among other obvious reasons for anonymity, I hate the press of both my devoted fans and those who would debate certain political positions during the hours I try to earn a living.
Since you have chosen to make so many incorrect assumptions about me, my motives, and my politics, Mr. Brown, I will take this opportunity to remind you what “assume” spells, without the dialect.
Other than that, Editors, hit was a great issue and maybe you should go camping in the mountains more often. But unless you deliberately want to lose weight, think two steps ahead and let the wife navigate.
Yere’s til the elk quit bugelin’
Clay Warren
Pseudonymous in Poncha