Letters from Gramps

May 20, 2000

Dear Yuppies,

I've about had it up to my gills with all this x-game, extreme sport, generation x bullshit.  Don't any of you bastards work?  I've lived in this valley for the last 40 years and seen people like you try to turn this place into some kind of fool's playground.  All that has accomplished for me is a 400% increase in property tax and having to follow $40,000 SUVs driven by people who don't know how to drive!  My old worm-fishing holes are all overrun by self-righteous, holier-than-thou, flyfishing "purists" trying to tell me how to manage MY WATERS!!  By God, they oughta put mirrors at all of the fishing accesses so these primadonnas can enjoy their frivolous garb.  They've got more shit hanging off them than Carter's got liver pills.   This place is going to Hell in a handbasket and it's guys like you getting rich off your fancy "websites" paving the way.  Well I'll tell you boys something.   I may be the only man left in this valley who gives a shit, but it's a shit worth giving, and it's my shit you're gonna git.  So get used to the taste 'cause you're gonna get a gut full.  I will be in touch!

Gramps

August 1, 2000

Dear Realistically Challenged Youth,

You have heard from me before in a letter I sent, expressing my distaste for your publication. Upon reading my own letter, I realized a slight tone of negitivity and feel the need to clarify myself. First of all, this valley HAS gone to hell in the last 20 years, and each year it accelerates at an exponential rate. The old time outdoors people, like myself, are the one's taking it in the shorts here! The outdoors now has a big price tag hanging on it and people are using it like some cheap prostitute. What ever happened to people doing and learning things on their own..... BY EXPERIENCE!! Ohh, I don't know how to fish, so I'm going to buy me a guide for $300 a day. Of course they looked up every river update on the internet, and hounded every fly-shop owner in town to figure out what flies to use. They then manages to catch a few trout, under the clucking wing of some guide, and WHAMO their "Flyfisherman"! Once this is accomplished, its time to buy one of their ridiculous looking hats. A couple more days like that, and they will be ready for their personalized, and always clever, flyfishing license plates. Then it's the out of state guy who wants his elk. Well..... Lets see here....., I'm out of shape, I can't shoot, and I don't know the first thing about elk hunting. What will I do?? I got it!!! I will buy one. And its off to your local outfitter to haul his fat butt all over hell and back until one commits suicide. What is wrong with this picture?? It is the invasion of the all mighty dollar that cheapens the experience. It fills our mountains, lakes and streams with people who don't know how to appreciate the experience because they bought their way past the first few crucial learning steps of the sport. This is very similar to the person who is born with money, and consequently never learns the value of the dollar. THIS is the scorge that is invading this valley!! Do us all a favor people; if your going to do something, do it yourself. I'm sure that in a short amount of time you will realize that the mountains are too steep, the weather too cold, and the trout too smart to waste your valuable money making time in OUR valley. Save the outdoors for the people who really want to be there. It is this, combined with a bad case of irritable bowel syndrome that makes me the grumpy bastard I am.

Gramps

July 4, 2007

Kooks,

Just as the rash on my weathered ass was beginning to heal, I stumbled onto another of your magazine’s ridiculous outbursts. The misfortune I am referring to, of course, is the “Up Front” letter published in your spring edition of Upside Down Bozeman. This letter brilliantly illustrates the metamorphosis of a California Beatnik into a full-blown Montana Pain in the Ass! These ignorant idiots should have been wiped out by the natural selection process two generations ago. Unfortunately, we’re too civilized to let nature take its course, paving the way for our country’s Rome-like destruction. Terry Levine and his ilk seem embarrassed to be human! They ignore their pure instinctual tendencies and flee self-righteously to their contrived “nature retreats,” meanwhile rejecting everything natural around them—like hunting and fishing, which humans have been doing since the dawn of time.

Like most true liberals, these wingnuts have no religious affiliation, and their lost and confused souls have run amok. They pinball insanely between worshipping themselves, worshipping the latest “spiritual” craze (i.e., yoga), and worshipping their childish ideals. If a subconscious spiritual crisis hits, they simply take up another obscure, worthless cause to “cleanse” themselves. This usually results in them attempting to save a few lab rats, which ironically serve society more than these pinko freaks ever will. These same anti-hunters probably feel it appropriate to tear a 2nd-trimester human off of its God-given life support system. As the old saying goes, “reason without passion is dull, but passion without reason is blind.”

But you know what really pickles my cucumber? People like this Terry Levine bozo are the people we embrace in our society, as “enlightened, pacifistic” humans. Heaven forbid these knuckleheads get the chance to run our government, as we deal with the most important war in our history. The fact that you pansy-ass liberal “editors” printed Terry Levine’s letter proves that you’re made up of the same stuff as he is: buffalo dung! You’re tired of Lewis & Clark, but can’t get enough of the envirozealot posers taking over Montana? And you wonder why us old-timers get crotchety.

We as a country are running blind into a wall of determined evil—people who are willing to manipulate our blind spots without mercy. We need to take our state, and country, back from these liberal dipshits. And Outside Bozeman needs to take responsibility and do what’s right… for a change! If this is too much weight for your anemic, leftist, pencil-neck shoulders to bear, try packing an elk out of Gallatin Canyon and building up some muscle. If not, you will be hearing from me!

Gramps