Gratitude Can Go Up In Smoke Letter Of The Week: From Aug. 11

This letter is in sympathy for the grass burners. I owe them for quite a bit.

I owe the grass burners for a retirement pension most men would give their right arm for. I owe them for a 20-room, two-story colonial home in which I live free and clear. I owe them my wife’s Lincoln Continental, which has 20-point diamonds in the windows. I owe them for my diamond-studded championship ring, which says I’m one of the best salesmen in one of the biggest companies in the world.

I owe the grass burners a helluva lot.

I was a drug salesman. I introduced the medical profession in Spokane to the first aerosol bronchial dilators. Due to the cold winters we have here, there was no difficulty in my sales keeping pace with the salesmen in Minnesota, Detroit, Chicago, Buffalo and other icebox cities. However, when their sales dropped off in warm weather, thanks to the grass burners, my sales continued to climb. I owe the grass burners a helluva lot.

I do have sympathy for the grass burners, not for any restrictions the Spokane County Air Pollution Authority is not likely to impose. I have sympathy for them because, I know what’s coming their way.

You see, I have a wife who is a bronchial cripple and a son who suffers with asthma.

I do have sympathy for the grass burners, because I have learned when you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Mike Cannon Spokane

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