An open letter to Bill Cooper
Bill -
As I see it, this crossbow criticism business goes back to your taking up gigging frogs. If you’d gone back to the primitive method of grabbing bullfrogs by hand, like I suggested several years ago, you’d have painted yourself as a purist with lasting effect.
It’s not about doing things the hard way versus the easy way; it’s about making it look harder than it actually is. Nor is it about presenting facts or the honest truth. An opinion is an opinion and a story is a story. The facts seldom stand up to either one when the listener regards them as irrelevant.
Here in Georgia, the crossbow hunters get lumped in with the muzzleloader toters and are granted a deer season that falls between archery and firearms seasons. Nobody complains much, except me. My gripe is there’s no time or tolerance for a fall turkey season of any sort. Biological facts, resource management principles, and minority preferences have no place in the discussion. The bottom line is having a fall turkey season would interfere with “tradition.”
If there’s anything I’ve learned from seven years of living in the South, it’s not to mess with tradition. A progressive culture is reserved for states like the “Show-Me State,” where you can have educated redneck views that may subject you to public ridicule but still know in your heart and mind that you are responsible enough to handle the truth properly–as well as forgive your critics for the way they choose to handle the same set of facts. It’s your story, you stuck to it, and you deserve the level of respect you’ve given others.
— Charlie Slovensky
