Letter from Clay Warren
Current events – June 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors,
Imagine mah suprize when ah got back from several months worth o’ dressin’ up funny to find even funnier stuff goin’ on within’ the pages o’ mah favorite magazine. Combine thet with irrational statements made on facetious radio, factual irresponsibility in letters to the Mtn. Myth, and the Burro Chaser putin’ his foot in his mouth and hit’s just one hell o’ a circus. Plenty o’ clowns, but we need more animal acts. Ah jist hope somethin’ explosive comes along and puts people’s minds’ back in prospective (no pun intended thar).
Ah kin sympathize with them people at the top o’ Poncha Pass, but they ain’t goin’ to whup the Federals. We tried thet back in the ’60’s, the 1860’s ah mean, and thet settled thet Constitutional issue once an fer all, as if the Integration War in the1960’s didn’t put a capper on it. Ah see mah neighbor the Rockologist has got a few toes started into his mouth too. Well, nobody kin be 100% right all the time.
But ah do recken the Yupsters, Greens, NIMBYs etc. will now come to realize what Uncle Sam ownin’ 83% o’ this county really means, and thet don’t even count the stealth part thet lies at the base of this dispute. However, ah have finally figgered out who is really behind all this mica protest. Ah kin jist visualize Keith McNew in Frémont county countin’ his increased property tax revenue from the property tax assessment on thet new mill an braggin’ to his fellow commissioners: See whut ah brung you! Hit wuddn’t as obvious as the mosquito hunt protest, but then the bucks are bigger in this one and the players more subtle.
Reckon all this concern about bar’s in Poncha (the native type ah mean, not mah favorite cool, dark and smoke filled kind, which we really do need more o’ out here) is valid, but ah calculate the skunk smell will hold ’em off south o’ True Ave. While we’re on the subject o’ wildlife, deer and coyotes is a favorite topic o’ mine too. Thet is because ah seen coyotes wipe out the entire crop o’ mule deer fawns two years in a row in one o’ mah favorite mountain meadows which didn’t have a fence in sight. So ah reckon yer HC News editor’s comments inside the front cover o’ the May edition, needs a reality check. Hit’s jist lak rabbits and coyotes, mice and coyotes, well yuh get the drift, even without humans in the equation as if thet were possible. Ah do hasten to add thet there is no collorary what so ever to the missing hens eggs and magpies situation.
Ah’m truly sorry to read about the passin’ o’ Marie Coombs at age 87. Hit jist goes to show you what excessive exposure to molten lead fume will do to shorten a productive life, er… mebe ah got thet backwards, er… Well, hell, you figger hit out an then tell the EPA, ’cause by their standard the floor in there is probably toxic waste, an ah ain’t referring to the fossilized tobacco juice neither.
Finally, ah jist can’t understand George Sibley’s objection to nukes. They are the most wonderful invention ever created, to prevent 19-year-old kids from catchin’ hostile rifle bullets with their heads or other body parts. See, hit’s the absence of a guaranteed, bonafide, application o’ nukes thet is what allows these petty shootin’ wars to go on, when they should have been made obsolete years ago. Look at hit this way: if a society (or its president fer life) chooses to make war on a neighbor, they elected to eliminate their own selves. Think Romans and Israelites 1900 or so years ago, and yuh git the pitcher. ‘Course the fact is thet the lesson thet occupier what won thet one learned seems to have been lost on the occupied this time, too. Effen yuh figgure in the end result at Masada, they seem to keep learnin’ all the wrong lessons o’ history the hard way. Then agin, mebe freedom does have a price. But is hit jist the kids instead of the old farts what have to pay hit? See thet’s mah point ‘xactly.
Yere’s ’til the wildfire smoke gits too thick.
Clay Warren
Pseudonymous in Poncha
P.S. Jist befor ah left, ah attended the Stock Show, where ah had the chancet to interview an ole buffalo bull which was up fer sale. Ah ast him bout how in creation 12 million o’ his cousins could cross a stream without doin’ any bank damage lak hit’s sometimes claimed. He swore thet they always went single file to disguise their numbers, and any incidental damages was the fault o’ the beavers fer fallin’ down on their contractual repair work. Swore to hit he did. Seems the deal was the buffalo would fertilize the plants the beavers ate, and the beavers would engineer up after the buffalo in return. Sort of lak the Closed Basin water situation in Saquache County ain’t hit? Ennyhow, ah have not found a beaver to confirm the facts o’ this story, since the FS seems intent in eliminatin’ every good fishin’ hole development around here.