[Letter excerpt, 1952]
On Dec. 22 I have to be at the U. of Utah for a lecture series – a rodeo staged by the philosophy dept. which has received great publicity and in which I am to play a prominent if unpopular role. If I were to walk out (and the thing was arrange last Spring) they would think we were on the run – from a bunch of academic philosophers, forsooth!
We are having a very mild to normal winter, with eastern tycoons blowing their heads off right and left in the quest for Canadian geese. Why do they have to be so damned predatory? The way the he-man cult of the hunter has blossomed forth since the II phase of the War bodes ill for the future of the great republic: not only does male population escape brain-work en masse to play Daniel Boone in the backyard, but they don’t even learn to be good woodsman in the glamorous and expensive process. Among the hundreds of marksmanship events at the Helsinki Olympics the U.S.A. got only ONE prize – a sixth place – while the Swiss and the Russians ran off with the show.
