Letter from Slim Wolfe
Public lands – March 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Ed,
I’ve enjoyed your many articles on Federal Lands use. John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt might roll over in the grave to think the hikers might have to team up with the ATV crowd in the name of wilderness preservation. Personally I’d vote for exemptions for some of the smaller, locally-owned sawmills and mines, almost as living historical districts, and let them steal a few dollars from the corporate tills, these might be easier to regulate than a Disneyfied Forest Entertainment Industry, though they might not produce the same revenue.
What Muir and Roosevelt couldn’t fully forsee was the combined pressures of population boom and transportation technology. It’s doubtful how many more generations will enjoy the right to a quiet hike in the mountains, more than likely it will turn into a quaint bit of history, like writing with a quill pen, when people can satisfy their desires for nature with recordings and other simulations. Ah well, majority rules, folks, and simulation has got the majority in it’s pocket. I’d like to keep the motorized warriors out of the forests, but it’s hard to argue good taste in court.
Slim Wolfe
Villa Grove
