Letters
WE THINK OF 'EM AS MEMOES FROM OUR BOSSES & NOTES FROM HOME...

DUKE LOOKALIKE?

Sir: My daughter did a doubletake the other day when she thought she saw her "brother" on the front of your magazine. [Jan./Feb. '07 issue with a young John Wayne on the cover.] Her brother, Raymond-my son-is working in Scotland at the moment, so I don't have any recent photos of him, but thought you might like to see one taken a couple of years ago to compare these two.

-Frances Cochrane, New South Wales, Australia

Frances: Thanks for sharing this with us- always fun to see these unexpected results.We had a lot of favorable response to that cover photo. So many people were delighted to see the Duke at that young age. My daughter's friend George was over at our house recently and was gazing upon the cover of that issue and, not recognizing the person in the photo, he inquired, "Is he [the cover subject], um, someone who is dead?" I answered yes, and then he showed some surprise, adding that he thought that if the subject were not someone from the past, then he would have thought that it was someone alive today-perhaps a model-a contemporary fashion model! Hard to picture the Duke that way, but then that photo showed a very different Duke Wayne. -EDITOR

NO LOOSE MOOSE

Dear Editor: I really enjoy reading American Cowboy magazine. I started subscribing after moving back west (home), for health reasons, after receiving a copy of your magazine at Cheyenne Frontier Days! I spent some 34 years with the National Park Service, the last 14 of which were in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as Resource Management Specialist. So I was quite interested in the "Riding in the Smokies" article written by Janine Wilder in the Jan./Feb. '07 issue of the magazine. Although you might see elk in Cataloochee Valley or even an occasional bear on a trail in the backcountry, especially if you are in camp and a bear is attracted to horse feed or other items left by negligent campers, you will never see a moose in the Park. Ms. Wilder must be thinking of some place in New England, or perhaps in the West somewhere. But there are no moose in the Smokies and never have been to my knowledge. But you, indeed, might see a foolish naked hiker (more likely someone in a river's pool). My wife and I loved the John Wayne article! Can't wait for the next issue. I bet my video library contains 30 or more of his movies, so far. Thanks for good reading.

-Carroll J. Schell, Cheyenne, Wyo.

Carroll: That was not Janine's fault-the reference to moose that far east. Somehow got introduced by a staff member who was only trying to help and then was missed or overlooked by the editor. Sorry about that. Our apologies to Janine, too. -EDITOR