To the editor:
Re: "Guns, jerks and steel a plague on the planet," July 27.
I've a brief tale of my own. But I want to set that up by recalling a song by Linda Ronstadt called "Back in the U.S.A." In my own little (and true) story from four months ago, I'm leaning on the railing in Coal Harbour talking to a couple of Texans attending an electrical union conference over at the Bayshore.
Up pops a harbour seal and I tell them a little about them and then one leans into the other, grins and says how easy it would be to pick off the harbour seal with his rifle. The seal is nothing more than a target to these "good old boys," something to measure up against their great, exalted prowess and skill and courage with weapons. With "heroes" like those two, there would be no harbour seals left anywhere in Burrard Inlet but most likely the single floating gas barge we have would become an entire floating refinery!
Well, I'm so very, very glad I ain't livin' in' the U.S.A.
Paul Beckett, Vancouver
