Some folks think progress is always improving or enlarging, modernizing and upgrading something. I think progress sometimes is just keeping something special just as it is.

I see the bureaucrats want to “improve,” develop, open up and expand Rockport State Recreation Area to produce the optimum modern camping experience — like that which you get when you pull in right next to your neighbor’s 32-foot travel trailer and want to have the kids get out of your hair at the clubhouse.

My wife and I have walked and hunted, launched our boat, and climbed the big hill for its grand view at Rockport for 30 years. We have paused our hike, looked across the vast quarry to the distant rim in the autumn splendor a hundred times, in an awesome silence that is almost a prayer … How do they improve on that? By putting in hundreds of campsites, electricity, a convenience store? That ought to pretty well improve Rockport to death!

We don’t have much to say, but we have this to say: Leave it alone! It’s perfect as is. Wanna spend money, pave the road out there.

DAN SCHACKMANN,

Alpena