Gramps Takes Heat
Dear Neanderthals,
What type of magazine endorses the malicious torture and wanton destruction of life through the promotion of fishing and hunting, then promotes cultural bigotry by publicizing letters from “Gramps”? The mindset you project is immoral, ignorant, and so very passé. Wake up and smell the 21st century!
Does a compassionate human being hang a carcass on the wall? It is nothing more than a malignant reminder of his ignorance and barbarism. Does a real man release an exhausted innocent creature back into the water, only to suffer and perhaps die later, simply to indulge his own shallow self-ingratiation? Like so many dogs, you and your camo-wearing cohorts salivate at the thought of biting into an irreplaceable part of Mother Earth. This is not selective evolution, as you might claim if you could comprehend such concepts, but rather the inane degradation of life, the life of both animals and humans!
And just who is this Gramps fool? With each letter I read from this glorified troglodyte, I wonder how a beautiful place like Montana can produce such cretins. How can this angry old man speak about “his” state? His Christian ancestors methodically disenfranchised the Native Americans only 150 years ago. If I want to stroll through the woods (without a weapon!) or lounge around a babbling stream, who is this crotchety man to deny me the right? I will not recognize the laws of thieves!
Furthermore, his diatribes about newcomers changing things with their new ideas and technologies are absurd! Does his hypocrisy have no bounds? He has no complaints against the Internet, or the fact that we have magazines instead of stone tablets to pass on ideas. He is right that things have changed and will continue to do so—women can vote, we have internal plumbing, and we know that disease makes people sick, not demons or humors! All that remains is to eliminate a few testicular indulgences, such as four-wheeling and shooting harmless rodents, and we may come close to finding the paradise this remarkable landscape is yearning to provide us.
My advice to Gramps is to just let it go, return to the spiritual dust and let a new creation emerge. As for this new creation, we are beginning it right here in Bozeman. I feel proud to be part of a new generation of Montanans, a group of wonderful and diverse people that bring forth a higher level of enlightenment through the long-overdue introduction of civility, education, and spirituality, all of which have been instrumental in changing Bozeman for the better. I remember when I moved here a decade ago—walking downtown, I couldn’t find a single place of cultural or spiritual exchange. No cafés, no wine bars, no yoga or Pilates studios to be found anywhere! I often think how culturally grim things were back then. These days, we have it all: the arts, fine dining, splendid shops, galleries galore, and a diversity of heritages whose shining smiles grow and blossom more with each new week. Change is in the air people! How about changing with it Outside Bozeman!
Here’s to a new awakening,
Billa Dean Drysdale
