Mike Ryan’s defense of rock climbing (HCN,
7/7/03: Invasion of the rock jocks) — that “climbers
aren’t just dirtbags … it’s mainstream now” and
that they now are “doctors and lawyers” (and such, I
must add) who by God “drive SUVs and have credit cards”
is telling: telling us it’s an elitist avaricious capitalism
that principally drives the wreckreational industries, just like it
drives the nation these days. To speak in generalities (for, as T.
S. Eliot noted, “the particular has no language,” and I
have some doctor-lawyer-etc. friends, though of the lower-brow
sort), it’s these same rich bastards and their offal-spring
who attempt to appease their guilt by donating to the Sahara Club
while being lost in the vast expanses of their trophy homes, SUVs,
swimming pools and golf courses.
So give me and my
outstretched fly-fishing arms your dirtbags, your rednecks, your
poor slobs any day. They’re one hell of a lot more
interesting and no doubt doing far less environmental damage per
capita, if not in toto.
In the spirit of Wobbly old Ed
Abbey,
David Cremean
Spearfish, South
Dakota
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Chalk it up to bolt dolts.
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