Different strokes for different folks — a threadbare cliché pedantic editors caution against, a principle I generally agree with.

Clichés are indeed boring and unimaginative, a lazy-writer’s tool that should be avoided. But there are exceptions to every rule, and who would know that better than I, a rule-breaker from way back? So, given the spoken and written feedback I receive, the strokes-and-folks cliché fits like, ummm, kid gloves. Oooops, there I go again. Pedants beware: a rebel.

What’s bugging me is that from time to time in this space, I am presented with a dilemma when traipsing off the trodden path of hook & bullet writing. The question is: Who should I write for, endangered sportsmen seeking the nuts and bolts, or non-hunters who love the outdoors, history, local issues, or streamside gristmill ruins, thus prefer the more playful, imaginative stuff that sometimes appears here? It’s an issue I often ponder when wandering into introspection I know will annoy some in my hunting/fishing fraternity, those who think I should stick to stocking and harvest reports, fishing derbies and turkey shoots, heroic hunting tales. It’s the same crowd that screams I’m out of place as a gun-owner and outdoor writer to criticize the NRA or jump into a political fray t’other side of the reactionary red, white and blue nimrod majority threatened by extinction here in the upper Happy Valley.

Fact is that even in the hilltowns, once a bastion of hunting lore and tolerance, it’s not always cool to be a hunter anymore. Sad but true. And the people who find the change in public perception most revolting expect me to join their loud, obnoxious diatribe. Sorry, fellas, ain’t happenin’. I’m a gun-owner and hunter of a different fabric, one who believes strongly in the right to bear arms but hopes we can still find a way to co-exist with self-righteous gun-control crusaders. The way I look at it, we have a sacred 200-plus-year-old document supporting us regardless of what the antis say or do. That’s a fact, one that doesn’t figure to change anytime soon given the conservative makeup of our federal judiciary, overstuffed with lifetime Reagan, Bush and Shrub appointees. So, all I can say to my paranoid gun-toting detractors is that we’re all entitled to our opinions, me no less than the dittoheads who parrot Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly and Wayne LaPierre, and who insist their foes are un-American and unpatriotic, even Commies and pinkos, heaven forbid. Infamous Joe McCarthy, the angry Irishman from Wisconsin, must be rolling in his shameful grave, or is it sham-ful? Guess it depends who you’re talking to. You be the judge.

In this, an age when hunters are falling by the wayside faster than newspapers, only a fool would stick to the traditional ”accepted” way of penning an outdoors column. At least that’s my view. I base it on numerous forms of feedback, all of which seem to indicate that a good chunk of this paper’s readership is bored to sleep by hook & bullet fodder, preferring more creative, eclectic narrative. My goal is to satisfy both types of readers, a delicate balance.

It’s no secret that you can never please everyone in this business. I knew that when I started 30 long years ago. So why try? Instead, I’ll stick to my masochistic ways, going with the flow and taking my lumps from both sides.

One writes to be read, not agreed with.