LETTERS: A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING

To the editor:

As I sat here at the Scopus store, I listened to some of the old-timers talk about how their great-great-granddaddys came here to start a new life. Some had fought for the North and some for the South. Some families were split, with one brother wearing blue and the other one gray. But all are proud of how their families pulled together through thick and thin to make sure that, in the end, all were taken care of, that the land they all worked so hard for was held sacred and preserved for the future generations, a tangible substance that could and would be handed down from generation to generation, with many stories to be told of the strife it took to preserve it.

My mind shifted back to this dead issue of the lake project. On April 1, the Southeast Missourian ran the headline, "Kinder: Lake bill dead." But reading into the meat of the article, you find that it only means for this year. Then later I started to see advertisements under "Notices" in the Southeast Missourian in which the proponents of the lake were looking for anyone to jump on their bandwagon. For a dead issue, it sure was generating a lot of press.

Then all of a sudden state Rep. David Schwab announced he had conducted another survey which, according to him, states that 50 percent of the lawmaker's constituents favor a lake vote. I live in Scopus Township, which is the only part of Bollinger County that falls into Schwab's district. I, nor any other of Schwab's constituents I talked to up here in these hills, have received any survey from him regarding the lake issue.

On May 15, I read that the lake proponents formed yet another committee. As one ponders all of these articles on a dead issue, one starts to believe that one has slipped into one of Grimm's fairy tales, the one that tells the story of the wolf who dressed in sheep's clothing to disguise himself for the deception of the unsuspecting sheep. I feel in this case all the landowners have become the prey, and it's time for the proponents to shed their sheep's clothing and tell the taxpayers the real story. In my mind, this new committee is just another wolf in sheep's clothing that needs to be sheared.

ANDREW J. WIESNER JR.

Marble Hill