Who Am I?

                          WHO AM I?

My favorite Broadway Play is Les Miserables, and in the play Jean Val Jean sings “Who am I?... I’m Jean Val Jean…24601!” It’s his confession that he is the escaped prisoner. Well, after writing my column for several months, it seems I need to tell some folks, “Who am I?” 

For my exercise, I walk and jog the 167 Bypass. It’s around three and a half miles, and during the summer, I’m tired and sweaty when I finish. Since, I do the same route four times a week, most folks know it’s me, and I get a lot of waves. However, last week I was plodding along and as I finished the route, up the access road toward Calion Road I heard whining mud tires, and I knew a pickup truck was about to pass me.  I glanced over my shoulder and spotted a black pickup, which was slowing down as it approached me. When he got right beside me, going less than ten MPH, I was nearly blasted off the road by an air horn. You bet, it bothered me, and I’m glad I don’t have heart problems. It was that loud.

 But then I started thinking about the air horn blast. Does the guy pull up beside every walker or runner and blast away with his air horn? No, I don’t think so, or he’d be arrested for harassment. So, I guess the guy just wanted to air honk Richard Mason. Was it because I am opposing the hog farm on the Buffalo, or maybe because I have tackled  the bill to let forest companies have  a free go to harvest the National Forests, or maybe because I oppose coal fired plants that put mercury in Arkansas fish? No, I don’t think so. Well, maybe, he was the writer who sent me an email calling me “A toad-licking liberal” or the guy who said I was the worst columnist of the sorry lot on the Perceptive Page, which, from his email, put me to the left of Nancy Pelosi. Yes, the air horn honk startled me, and some of the emails irritated me, but after spending six years as a member and one year as Chairman of the Arkansas Pollution Control & Control Commission as the designated Environmental Member, where at times, the meetings were one step away from having my arm tied to another member’s and each being handed a knife, I can handle the air horn. So being called “A toad licking liberal” just got a small grin. Actually, I think that would look good on a t-shirt.

Of course, I don’t get all negative emails. So, before I continue, I want to thank all the other folks who have contacted me with positive responses. They outrank the negatives by 20 to 1. However, if you are going to stick a label on me make it real, so let me give you the so called toad licking liberal side of me.

 I have spent thousands of hours fishing and hunting in Arkansas’s woods, paddling up Champanolle Creek fishing around the big cypress trees, several thousand squirrel hunts, frog gigging, and running a trap-line, all of which ingrained in me an appreciation of Arkansas’s natural setting, and I don’t have any doubt that influenced me.  I will admit, I am an individual who readily joins or leads the fight when Arkansas natural heritage or wildlife is threatened. Well, does that make me a toad licking liberal? Of course not; because I don’t think the majority of Arkansas folks are for letting the Buffalo National River be polluted by a hog farm, or do they want to see our National Forests become company tree farms and the size of our national monuments reduced. So, I don’t believe the air-horn honking guy who blasted me off the road is anti-environmental. He and his mud tires probably spend a lot of time on or near the Ouachita River. Of course he may have forgotten that I and a host of others fought the Corp of Engineers and two very prominent Democrats to keep the Corp from making 28 river-killing bend cuts. Yes, I opposed Democrats! That fight took months until our group of anti-bend cutters---Republicans and Democrats, finally prevailed.

Well, on top of that, I’m a free trade no tariffs person and the idea that we don’t have a balanced budget and keep running up the national debt is horrible. Those traits are bedrock Republican, or at least they were. And I have in the past voted for a Republican president and local Republicans. Well, does that make me a Republican?  Of course not, but it doesn’t make me a toad licking liberal Democrat either.

Yes, I’m opposing several Republicans because of their detrimental environmental policies, but I would be hounding a Democrat just as strongly. There are many things in politics that are wrong-headed short-term fixes for special interests, and the Democrats have had their share. However, today, we have a party that is hell-bent on destroying the environmental progress made by a bipartisan congress. Republicans have had a lot to do with all of the environmental bills that were passed, and many bills and regulations were Republican initiated.

Calling someone a liberal because they oppose the destruction of our forest, wildlife, streams and rivers is just plain wrong.  When a person does that they are saying you can’t be a Republican if you support things like removing the hog farm from the Buffalo National River Watershed. Or if you criticize a congressman for a wrong-headed bill that would gut the Endangered Species Act, you can’t be a Republican, and any criticism of the administration makes you’re a liberal, and you are subject to degrading name calling and air-honks? No! There are plenty of Republicans who are strong supporters of good environment policies.

But of all the things in Arkansas that should be bipartisan is the Buffalo National River, and should top everyone’s list. But is it? Have we sunk so low that someone who calls themselves a Republican will stand back and ignore the destruction of our National River in order to keep from being called a toad licking liberal? It will be a sad day for our state if the silence of thousands of Democrats and Republicans causes the demise of our National River. 

For the last several years, we have all but stopped talking about issues, and have tried to tie everyone running for elective office as either conservative or liberal. In other words you can’t be a Conservative Democrat or a Liberal Republican. Yes, those are the so called rules, but what happened to bipartisan voting on issues? Yes, there are plenty of Conservative Democrats and a lot of Liberal Republicans. So let’s stop calling all Republicans conservatives, and all Democrats liberals? Wouldn’t it be great if we once again had campaigns where the best interests of our country was front and center instead of who can trash the other candidate more?  Let’s stop the name calling, and just call us Americans.

But if you still want to label me, tag me with what’s in my heart, and yes it’s the love of a natural Arkansas and its wildlife. Am I a damn tree hugger? You bet I am!