The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

To the Eagle:

Last time I owned a television set, or did any serious viewing, the big law enforcement program on was called "Gunsmoke" starring Marshal Matt Dillon, so but for a stroke of fate, last week's letter by Nick Nikkala trying to bend our sheriff election into parallel with one on a TV series would have gone right over my head. But as luck would have it, my wife bought me a starboard hip replacement for our 26th anniversary, and I invested in a large stack of books to tide me over while learning to make all my new bionic parts work -- and four of 'em happened to be from the Walt Longmire series upon which Nick's show is based. All of which qualifies me to get into the conversation and note that I think Nick got his parallels backward.

The hero, Sheriff Walt Longmire, is a great big guy and always has a weight problem because of it, has been sheriff over 25 years in the least populated county of the least populated state, has many close friends and admirers among the local townsfolk as well as the Indians from the Cheyenne reservation which overlaps his county. He has a keen investigative mind, a cool laid back sense of humor, a fun command of language, and nice slice of historical mysticism he shares with his Indian friends -- all of which sounds more like Mike Balch to me than the other way around does. Also it's hard see Mike in the role of the upstart running against his boss, when Mikey is the one who's been here serving us faithfully and well in this sheriff department for 29 years.

However the lit/crit pans out, I'm also having difficulty getting motivated to make our election come out like one on TV. In Mike Balch we've been given the opportunity to elect someone sheriff who has been here three decades as a good neighbor, good friend, and great cop. As that tough Boston P.I. Spenser would put it, "We'd be fools not to."

Howard Brawn, Puget Island