Someone had to say it
Look, I'm as tolerant as the next guy when it comes to corn pone columnists in our local papers, but Vic Anderson's time was up around six years ago. Vic's bio indicates he was an original member of the Lazy B Wranglers, and is still a champion yodeler and musical whistler, which gives you some idea what era he has yet to emerge from. Any chance you might know the Schuhplattler or perform Japanese Noh or craft jewelry from hair, Mr. Anderton, or have some other fetish/archaic skill that seems equally out of place?
Would it be alright if Estes Park was Elko, Nevada, or St. Anthony, Idaho, or Burwell, Nebraska? Mebbe. Or mebbe these communities have an equivalent number of readers who have already progressed beyond requiring their weekly dose of faux-Baxter Black and Bonanza reruns, or instead subscribe to another service more qualified to provide it.
For the past half-century, Estes Park has had no significant history of ranching or roping or engaging in the cowboy arts, save for dressing up for the tourists during the week of the Rooftop Rodeo. If the stuff Vic writes was educational or wistful or poignant or funny or harkened back to a bygone era anyone besides Sombrero Stables and two cousins at Good Sams could relate to, perhaps the space the Trail-Gazette dutifully devoted to it each week could be justified. Jim Hazlett overstayed his welcome at the News, becoming increasingly curmudgeonly and intolerant, Vic is just drifting into repetitious inanity. It's like he created a Mobius strip of bad writing some time back, and just finds a different part of the loop each week to peel off and plug in.
Does anyone read his stuff? Routinely? Does the visitor's bureau issue an apology to tourists every weekend when his latest tautologic nonsense appears, and they enter pointing and puzzled? Seriously. Most of us are not backwards hicks or simple hayseeds, and don't aspire to be. We are not a rural western community, we are not a farming or agri-business community, only a very few of us barely ride horses anymore. Plus, to be honest, we long ago discovered the pleasures of owning a pet, and the benefits of adequate precipitation. We don't know any hoboes, never met any hoboes, and don't really require a primer about how to behave around hoboes. We don't keep chickens, or worry about how to keep predators away from our chickens, or get a feeling of fulfillment repairing or even reading about repairing a chicken coop. If we were interested, we would pull up the latest CSU Ag bulletin, not torture ourselves with doggerel like:
They get paid just once a year, and that's the only time,/other than those little sales, like a beef, a colt, a swine./Some will sell a ton or two of hay for equine pets/which brings in "go to town" type cash and helps with due bill frets.
I don't raise hay, none of my friends raise hay, and no one living within a 3-mile radius of the downtown post office would, unless they were insane, introduce themselves hay producers or country folk.
Look, I know the man probably does it for free, riding in with copy hot off his portable Remington well before deadline. But even his sponsor has long since gone out of business (see below), and this is likely one of these cases where no editor or publisher or person of influence at the paper has the heart to tell him. Vic is clearly reliable, dependable, and as predictable as Grandpa's morning dump after coffee, but no one is requiring invited guests to get within 50 yards of that. Certainly not Friday after Friday after Good for fuggin Friday.
For the past half-century, Estes Park has had no significant history of ranching or roping or engaging in the cowboy arts, save for dressing up for the tourists during the week of the Rooftop Rodeo. If the stuff Vic writes was educational or wistful or poignant or funny or harkened back to a bygone era anyone besides Sombrero Stables and two cousins at Good Sams could relate to, perhaps the space the Trail-Gazette dutifully devoted to it each week could be justified. Jim Hazlett overstayed his welcome at the News, becoming increasingly curmudgeonly and intolerant, Vic is just drifting into repetitious inanity. It's like he created a Mobius strip of bad writing some time back, and just finds a different part of the loop each week to peel off and plug in.
Does anyone read his stuff? Routinely? Does the visitor's bureau issue an apology to tourists every weekend when his latest tautologic nonsense appears, and they enter pointing and puzzled? Seriously. Most of us are not backwards hicks or simple hayseeds, and don't aspire to be. We are not a rural western community, we are not a farming or agri-business community, only a very few of us barely ride horses anymore. Plus, to be honest, we long ago discovered the pleasures of owning a pet, and the benefits of adequate precipitation. We don't know any hoboes, never met any hoboes, and don't really require a primer about how to behave around hoboes. We don't keep chickens, or worry about how to keep predators away from our chickens, or get a feeling of fulfillment repairing or even reading about repairing a chicken coop. If we were interested, we would pull up the latest CSU Ag bulletin, not torture ourselves with doggerel like:
They get paid just once a year, and that's the only time,/other than those little sales, like a beef, a colt, a swine./Some will sell a ton or two of hay for equine pets/which brings in "go to town" type cash and helps with due bill frets.
I don't raise hay, none of my friends raise hay, and no one living within a 3-mile radius of the downtown post office would, unless they were insane, introduce themselves hay producers or country folk.
Look, I know the man probably does it for free, riding in with copy hot off his portable Remington well before deadline. But even his sponsor has long since gone out of business (see below), and this is likely one of these cases where no editor or publisher or person of influence at the paper has the heart to tell him. Vic is clearly reliable, dependable, and as predictable as Grandpa's morning dump after coffee, but no one is requiring invited guests to get within 50 yards of that. Certainly not Friday after Friday after Good for fuggin Friday.
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| That's the end of the sentence. If I can spend a few minutes in the back yard what? Challenge you to a yodel-off? |
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