[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: anti-plant legislation
A short while ago, during a commercial break, one of the local TV channels
made an announcement. You know, one of those announcements they use to
encourage you to tune in for the nightly garbage.. err., that is, the
nightly news. Seems the legislative body that controls access to the
Guadalupe river is meeting tonight to determine the fate of rafting on the
river. The folks along the river are fed up with rafters who float the
river on inter tubes, drink beer, throw their cans into the river and
generally make a nuisance of themselves. The Guadalupe above and also
immediately below Canyon lake is a beautiful, gravel bottomed river, much
like some of the streams I grew up on in Arkansas.
A couple of years ago, my wife and I drove down to the Guadalupe to scout
around. Reports were, it was an excellent place to fly fish. The problem
was, there were to many rafters. Before it is warm enough to raft, it's to
cold for fish in the river to bite. After it gets warm, there are to many
rafters. Valuing solitude in my fishing, I didn't go back.
So what does the proposed legislation mean to me; and when will it pass,
for pass it will; if not now, then sooner or later; for that is the mindset
of today's society. Will it give me back access to a clean stream where I
may fish in solitude, or at least peace? Not likely, for what is the
difference between me on my belly boat(inter tube), floating the river for
my enjoyment and one of the rafters against whom the legislation is aimed,
floating the river for his enjoyment?
Of what benefit is a pristine river to me if I can only see it on
television. Save it for some future generation who will be more able to
take care of it? Bull manure! Might as well make a video of it and turn
it into a sewage dump. What is the difference between being stabbed in the
back out of malice or having it done out of good intentions? It hurts just
as much either way!
So long as we as a society insist in turning a blind eye to the defections
of a guilty minority, and respond to their actions by legislation that only
punishes the innocent majority, we are in deep do-do. In my life, I spent
a number of years teaching. One lesson I learned from the enlightened(?)
school administration. If thievery by a few is ignored, it soon becomes
the norm of the majority.
Whether it be the restrooms in a roadside park, the non native plants being
introduced into our waterways or access to the Guadalupe river, unless we
are willing to teach respect to the majority and aim our laws and
punishment at the guilty, we don't have a snowball's chance in a very hot
place of ever producing anything but crap. IHMO.
Regards,
Onis
k5vkq at ix_netcom.com
"Always walking in the weeds!"