Respect? Many times, while going to the Mauna Kea summit in the evening to open for the night’s research, I would be following a vehicle-load of residents going up to watch the sunset.

There would be trash flying out of the vehicle windows as the contents were expended on the way up. Most of us who love that mountain would stop and pick the stuff up and on arrival at the summit, return the containers to the original owners. It has always been an enigma as to why “residents” could be so disrespectful.

Also, it would be helpful if it could be ascertained exactly how much money comes into the state as a direct result of operations on Mauna Kea, adding to that what will be generated by the Thirty Meter Telescope.

But in my antiquity, I keep forgetting that getting even for past sins both real and imagined is worth shooting one’s self in the foot.

I was “up there” for 20 years, been retired for 20 years, but that mountain is as close to my heart as my family. To use it as cudgel is the most disrespectful thing of all.

Ken Barton

Lebanon, Ore.

Click here to read more Letters to the Editor.