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To the Editor,
One of the most soothing odors one can sense can be found inside a barn housing cattle. Skeptics are invited to experience the earthy aromas permeating the air as troughs are being mucked of fresh droppings, while the cows feed on a staple diet of hay. The cows low contentedly and continue their droppings as the farmer extracts lacteal fluid from udders.
The purpose of this letter is to refute hysterical claims made by our liberal friends that our environment is suffering from an over-dose of poisonous methane. A primary cause, they assert, is an over-population of livestock.
Most dairy farmers I've known have lived long, healthy lives after cleanups of dung, day in and day out, while patrons in surrounding areas had barely noticed any smell. Complaints of ill after-effects were seldom heard, except perhaps from fussy ladies striving to climb the social ladder.
Looking back at my own experience growing up in the 50's as a 'Yooper' in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, fun times were had by all. Dodo the horse drew a wagonload of merrymakers to town to enjoy a few brews at our favorite tavern (this horse-drawn wagon was the last to be seen on the highway in our locality). Infused with a rich aroma, we'd helped a dairy farmer friend to muck stalls in his warm barn. Shoes, however, were cleaned.
Complaints of the odor we carried were seldom heard. The ladies frequenting our tavern rejoiced to see us come. There we danced to lively Frankie Yankovic polkas or shuffled a two-step to some plaintive hillbilly song as the ladies drew close. The barn smell we carried completely subdued any perfume the ladies had applied and defeated whatever natural body odors they exuded.
Free drinks for the ladies increased conviviality. The more money spent, the better. One of our smelly guys married one of the ladies -- a pleasingly plump, fortyish woman still in possession of all her teeth. Their marriage endured.
The liberal of academia concerned with the health of the planet waxes eloquently on the deleterious effects of livestock-induced methane that may affect one's wellbeing, and which, they claim, contributes significantly to global warming. Conversely, one painfully endures the repeated chanting of bromides heard at mass gatherings of protest on the street - scads of bromides that've saturated empty skulls. As Friedrich Nietzsche, the erstwhile promulgator of a Superman philosophy, proclaimed to lackeys, "The ass brayed, Eeh Haw! Eeh Haw!"
Let's take a step further. I invite you, liberal, to ask a farmer engaged in the husbandry of cattle to allow you to spend a few hours in his barn. Ask him if he needs any help mucking the troughs. Otherwise, seek a steaming manure pile topped with fresh droppings, even if you must do this surreptitiously. Spend some time there.
Please let us know if you suffer any ill effects.
Gail A. Wickstrom
Newell