Letters and feedback

Deluded letter
Dear Editor:
Howard Gaines is incredibly deluded in his January letter claiming his 91-year old wife was harassed for her driving! [“Elder harassment,” Letters, January 2007].
Her driving as a menace to society on the wrong side of the road was apparently beyond both of their recognition. Having the other driver and a police officer confront her after a near wreck constitutes “intimidation” and “beratement” in Mr. Gaines’ view. His confusion reaches incredulousness when he asserts the Bill of Rights guarantees a right to confront the “accuser” (out of court) during a police field investigation! Of course, Mr. Gaines believes his wife’s driving was not flawed. How unlikely! His utter incognizance of reality leaves me clear that the elder harassment in this case was perpetrated by the elders—Mr. Gaines and his wife’s driving! I pray they get off the road before they hurt someone.

Kevin P. Rice
San Luis Obispo, Calif.

More endangered species
Dear Editor:
I enjoyed reading your “Rogue of the Month,” Steve Tross, for January. Steve has worked on my cars several times over the years and the experience was a pleasure. Steve is a standup guy who tells you what he thinks in no uncertain terms. His sadness about the loss of the way things used to be in Cayucos is shared by a lot of folks who remember those days.
Spending time at the sea wall in Cayucos through the ‘60s was the most interesting times a young person could imagine. Talk about eight or nine years of galactic changes to American culture! Surfing was the brand new craze. The Beach Boys and the Beatles were popping out song after song that actually had words to them, and the words were evolving the times, in real time. Muscle Cars were cool. Quarter mile racing occurred on Friday and Saturday nights between the bridges on Highway 101 in San Luis Obispo or north of Cayucos on the long straight stretch of Highway 1 just below Villa Creek. If you were caught racing by the one highway patrolman who worked in our area, you were scolded and sent home for the night. Unless you were granted a college deferment, your choices as a young man during many of those years was basically, go to Vietnam, move to Canada or go to jail.
The Doors and Jefferson Airplane in the later ‘60s were promoting experimentation with mind-altering drugs, which made things even wilder.
A lot of it all culminated, at least in Cayucos, in 1969 with a bar called the “Rest Room,” with “Men” and “Women” in big white letters over the double swinging door entrances and a trap door over the bar that allowed a dummy in a hangman’s noose to drop instantly to freak out unsuspecting patrons. Talk about grounds for a lawsuit these days!
I sure agree with Steve in that now it seems that many in society are willing to overlook honesty and fair dealing in order to compete in all the underhanded sleight-of-hand games that no longer seem to be just in our underbelly.
Yes, things have changed and some not for the better, but at least fellows like Steve have been able to maintain their own moral footing. Not being able to get straightforward honest answers to even our most basic everyday questions and concerns is choking out what is left of our moral fiber. Hardly anyone gives a shit anymore if it does not affect them directly. The Rogue is sure a good change of pace if you like information and opinion being reported with the sharp edges in place, as they should be. It can be a better wake up than a Triple Mocha Latte. Yes, fellows like Steve are becoming fewer and fewer. A true endangered species.

Dave Stevens
Cayucos, Calif.

You’re a lost man
Dear Mr. Franklin:
I picked up your paper this week for the first time at the Lucia Lodge restaurant in Big Sur. I found it honest and courageous, a re-freshing change from the business-sponsored and commercialized papers along the Central Coast and elsewhere. It was interesting to get behind scenes in two stories, “D.C. Wilderness,” and “Destination Ash” [January, 2007].
Having said this, however, I probably won’t pick up your paper again. The apparent intelligence and sincerity there are overshadowed by its cynicism, anger, hatred, negative stereotypes, and misogyny. These feelings and attitudes coupled with the alcoholism—present in all the narrators of your stories—do explain the “lost men” of which you are one. When I look at your photo I see an attractive but depressed, exhausted and dissipated person. The face also has in-telligence. In all, it’s a sad photo. What a waste.
If I were your mother, I would send you, and your friends, to rehab and therapy. You portray yourselves as victims of society, but I think you are your own worst enemy.

P. Rose.
Palo Alto, Calif.

Editor’s Note:
Sheesh, the poor guy hasn’t had a drink in over a week. Besides, he’s 63 years old for god’s sake, give the guy a break. Have mercy. Actually, the photo was posed. We wanted him to look pathetic.
—S.W.








Dear Editor:
I really enjoy your paper. The articles “telling it like it is” are refreshing yet sad. I reflect on my life and observations daily.
I see very little if any hope. I’ve spent my life trying to help people help themselves to little avail. I have a B.A., worked in V.I.S.T.A. for a year, worked in India with Mother Teresa for six months, worked with handicapped and wanted to be a priest at one time. In spite of a severe neurological problem from birth, I perse-vered and disciplined myself. I am in my 50s and see so many younger people using the system and whining. Maybe you ought to write an article, “I want to be a BUM.” They really seem to enjoy that lifestyle. We keep giving them more crutches and fish instead of teach-ing them how to fish for themselves.
I go home and cook, wash dishes, do laundry, do mail, etc., while these people go to get a free meal and bed with NO responsibility, claiming they can’t function because of one thing or another.
Maybe this is destiny or just our “path,” as the Buddhists say. I have thought like this and taken action all my life but now I am very tired, upset and confused when I see and hear these things daily.

Salvatore Gambino Jr.
San Luis Obispo, Calif.