I’ve just completed one of Chilton Williamson’s columns and I’m literally embarrassed. I now understand what it is that he has been trying to express these last few months in his work. Everything he wrote about his elk hunting trip is absolutely perfect, and yet it sounds so anachronistic! This is what is so embarrassing. The people in that particular story should be myself and most Americans, and yet, my daily concerns involve the resale of my silly condominium in a San Diego suburb and my family’s upcoming “trip” to Disneyland! My Cod, my God, why have we forsaken Thee?! Thank you, Chilton Williamson, Jr., for giving my envy a proper stirring. —Bob Sale San Diego, CA

Chilton Williamson, Jr., Replies:

Mr. Sale has taken firm hold on The Hundredth Meridian: I couldn’t have put it better myself. The column, in spite of its apparent general popularity, has been misunderstood by some readers, who have taken its purpose to be the glorification of gore, guts, guns, and even alcohol. The fact that what were until recently common realities of human experience can be mistaken for some sort of sick fantasy suggests that it may be even later than I dreamed.