Editor:

It was with interest and amusement that I read the comments Ms. Taylor and Mr. Gagnon made about the Rainbow Family in the Sunday, June 29 Casper Star-Tribune. I had just returned from the Big Sandy area and had personally observed the reality of the Rainbow Family and its impact on the area.

It was clear to the most casual observer that the arrival of the Rainbow Family at Big Sandy had created a vacancy under every railroad bridge in the United States.

Rainbows were observed skinning out a road-killed jack rabbit alongside a dirt road leading to Big Sandy. A Wyoming Game Warden found others fishing without a license. The owner of a summer home caught two Rainbows in his driveway busily loading his firewood into their van. When accosted the Rainbows told him it was the "people's wood" not his. The owner, not being swayed by their argument, convinced the two Rainbows that their safest course of action was to immediately unload and restack the wood and leave never to return. This is the Rainbow Family in action.

Based upon my observations I cannot understand how attending a Rainbow Family gathering could provide a lifetime "inspiration" in the manner of Ms. Taylor's attendance at "Methodist Camp at Meadowlark Lake" unless one aspires to be a thief or a scofflaw. Mr. Gagnon listed fifteen "laudable characteristics" of the Rainbows "that are in short supply in our country" but his list (probably deliberately) did not include honesty and respect for the law. Perhaps Mr. Gagnon observed the same things I did but excuses the Rainbow's dishonesty and disrespect for the law because " … these people are simply not meek."

Mr. Smith's descriptive comments about the Rainbows in that Sunday's paper are much closer to the mark than those of Ms. Taylor and Mr. Gagnon. Despite the promises the Rainbow Family made to the U.S.Forest Service, the environmental damage these people are inflicting on the Big Sandy area will take many years to repair.

TIM J. NOUSI, Arvada, Colo.