Fear-Free Sundays
Advocates of Sunday hunting claim it is unfair not to be allowed to shoot anything on the seventh day (see "Open Season," Jan. 17, 2008). They argue that the law banning hunting on Sundays should be repealed, making it easier for them to follow their sport seven days a week. Hunters are now free to go into the woods six days a week, September through March, plus some time in April and May (for turkey). I have never known a hunter who hesitated to take a day or more off work to follow his passion.
I am in favor of hunting. Deer have eaten my garden plants to the ground for decades; we have too many, everywhere. I have not posted my woods, forbidding entry, for 45 years. Hunters are free to do their thing on over 60 acres.
But I'm one of "these people" unreasonable enough to claim one day a week, Sunday, for non-hunting recreation: for walking on roads alongside or in the woods, for riding, hiking, bird watching, mushroom picking, photographing, kindling collecting and, in my case, just walking the meadows and woods near my house without fear.
The blue law still on the books, "protecting and promoting the health, safety and welfare" of the state's citizens, must be upheld; we need it now as much as ever. If Rep. Anne Gobi doesn't "see hunting as a public safety concern," she willfully misses the main issue. It is the fear of the users of firearms that makes it necessary to have a non-shoot Sunday for woods-related activities by non-hunters.
To blame the Sunday hunting ban for the current low number of new hunters, as the NRA does, is totally ridiculous. A lot of the absent hunters are fighting our wars, are maimed or even dead. If and when the number of hunters rises again, a shoot-free, fear-free Sunday is even more necessary.
Friederike Dewitz
Florence
Wrong About Earle
Jesse Walker doesn't seem to have really listened to what Steve Earle has produced since 9/11 ["Steve Earle's Hammer," Jan. 24, 2008]. Well, at least he hasn't been listening to the storytelling, alt-dirging, punk-inspired ranting, country rocking and telling-it-like-he-feels Steve Earle that I've eagerly anticipated with each new album he produces. First take his since-9/11 songs "Home to Houston" and "Gringo's Tale" as examples of his still evocative storytelling. Another thing Walker doesn't seem to get is that Steve isn't just a songwriter, he's an all-round musician, experimenting with arrangements, instrumentation and timbral textures that often surprise, sometimes challenge, but always delight my ears. "Folkery-fakery" might apply to Pete Seeger's overly sweet songwriting, but not to the still reaching for something new and always from the heart Steve Earle.
Peter Houlihan
Sunderland
