19th Hole: The Readers Take Over

Sirs:
Our state commission for the promotion of tourism has worked for years to accomplish what you and Bil Gilbert have done in a few pages.

West Virginia is being advertised far and wide as a poverty-stricken, depressed area. We are in a state of change here, and I personally want to thank SPORTS ILLUSTRATED for its contribution toward dispelling the image of tar-paper shacks, hillbillies and welfare checks generally associated with the Mountain State.

The word of West Virginia is spreading. More and more people are realizing that West Virginia is stretching her boot straps, trying to pull herself out of shame.
SAM ZIMMERMAN
Huntington, W.Va.

CREEPING INTEREST
Sirs:
That article on the bugs that live under mossed-over, slimy, wet, dark rocks really shook me (Out from under a Rock, May 4).

Inside of two paragraphs I felt long, creeping, crawling, fast little animals, with needles coming out from under their eyes, shuffling about under my chair ready to leap and let me have one right on the tender side of my Achilles tendon—or ready to emit some poisonous gas which would drift up alongside of me and freeze me like marble.

As I was writing this I had my legs neatly tucked up underneath me. It was a pretty interesting article, though.
JEAN PAUL
St. Louis