Politics have made us all weary, so I’ve tried to avoid them lately. But I got a remarkable letter this week that needs to be shared.

First, I want to put in a word for all the great volunteers who build and maintain the Ice Age Trail (IAT) and who continue that noble effort. Anyone who would like to join this illustrious group can do so April 7-8, including at a trail portion just north of us in Marathon County.

The Ice Age Trail Association hosts a number of “mobile skills crew” activities throughout the year, and next week’s Ringle Segment project east of Wausau begins at 10 a.m. Friday, continuing until 4 p.m. Saturday.

A number of tasks are scheduled, and volunteers of all ages – including young members of the family – are encouraged to join the effort. 

More information on the Ringle project can be found at www.iceagetrail.org/event/ringle-segment-corridor-clearing-event.

Information on general IAT volunteerism – which in 2016 accounted for almost 77,000 hours of work by volunteers – can be found at www.iceagetrail.org/volunteer.

Now let’s get to that letter from Lester Robert Peeples, who goes by Les Rob and who readers may recall writes to me on occasion to share interesting and somewhat dubious views on various topics related to the outdoors, nature, and the trials of being excessively rich.

Surprisingly, he seems a little upset about environmental protection and business in general.

Les Rob feels environmental dejection

Dear Steve Hill,

I thank you again for running my last letter, which I recognize must have been kind of like getting off your job as a greeter at Wal-Mart and turning onto the highway to see some 18-year-old blow past in his Lamborghini while his three girlfriends laugh and point at your 1998 Yugo.

Now, you may not believe me, but I sort of know how you feel. I’ll never have a humiliating job like being a newspaper writer, but I am sorta disgruntled. You see, April Fool’s Day has arrived, and for the first time in years, I’m guessing I got played.

You know that I’m not bragging when I tell you about my silver-plated snowmobiles and my 47 mansions, because if it’s true it ain’t bragging. I simply believe it important to give you some context for understanding my general obstination toward recreation by any member of the freeloading nation, which is pretty dern near everybody in America, from what I can tell lately.

That includes Donald Trump and all his buddies, who I used to think were also my buddies until they started getting serious about that wall between us and New Mexico. As you know, I built a condo there so I could see the ocean. 

Then they banned muslins, and my wife really likes that fabric because she’s a quilter, and believe you me, when Mrs. Peeples isn’t happy, ain’t nobody happy in my 45 mansions.

Yes, 45. I just sold two of ’em because of all the money I’ve lost in the last eight minutes.

When we banned fabric imports from all them isosceles countries and started scaring the salesmen and their communist friends from pinko terrorist textile lands about coming over here, my time-share business really started suffering, and as you may remember I make most of my money from selling time shares.

That’s why I only read the travel press, because they don’t deal with fake news like the rest of you slanderous sad-sacks. The thing is that all the travel news has been bad lately. Seems everybody is kind of leery about coming to the United States.

Not only that, I just went out in the back yard of one of my 42 mansions, and I found all the fish in my river floating belly-up like a Republican health-care bill. 

Turns out some factory 30 miles upriver dumped a bunch of hazardous chemicals into the water, along with a bunch of little yellow plastic ducks with “Ha ha!” painted on their backs.

I got so mad I called the Environmental Protection Agency, where I reached a recording that said, “The number you have dialed is no longer in service, and neither are we.”  Then I called the three congressmen I bought last election cycle, and every one of them had gone to an “invitation-only town hall meeting,” which I know is political code for “gimme a bourbon and tell my constituents to call the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Now, all of us know dern well that a wall in New Mexico won’t make any dern difference.  In fact, my marketing research department tells me net migration from south of the border is now negative, and if you can’t trust marketing research, who can you trust? 

And normally I’d be OK with building a wall between nothing and nowhere as long as it was my construction company reaping the profits. But I’m not in that business anymore, as I had to sell it off to finance the purchase of one of my congressmen.

Some of my rich former buddies are in that business, though, and because they’re the ones killing my time shares, they’re not on the list for upcoming parties at any of my 36 mansions, believe you me.

The point of all this being that I’ve got to spend a little more time saving my own rear end, so I won’t have the energy to write you letters anytime soon. And if I were you, I’d forget about all your cute little stories about parks and trails and stuff.  Just leave all that to the plastic ducks.

Get into construction instead. Or I can hook you up with a sales position in one of my foreign offices over in Branson, Missouri. We can always use a good storyteller or two.

Wishing you good luck and good-bye for now.

Your friend,

Les Rob Peeples