[MeredithMan]

I've been reading this thread over the last few days and I have to chime in. As long as there are humans, there will be those who are selfish, greedy, and have no regard for the environment around them. While there was certainly less development 200 years ago, (or whatever the more pristine time is that previous posters have referred to), the masses were less educated and as a whole, had much less regard for the environment than people do today.

While there are certainly pigs who toss their beer cans in the lake, my experience has been that the majority of people treat the lake with respect. To refer to Meredith and The Lakes Region as a "hell hole", is an ignorant statement. If you want to see a Hell Hole, go to India....go to Brazil....go to China.

In Bangalore, India, multi-generational families live under tarps on the sidewalk; Huge piles of trash are everywhere; People openly urinate and defecate in public; Cows, (which are sacred), roam the city streets; There are no traffic signs or lights, so the streets are total mayhem of cars, scooters, animals, and pedestrians; Hotels have fortress walls around them with iron gates, and upon entering, your car is sniffed by bomb-sniffing dogs and you pass through a metal detector to get into the hotel.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, trash and human waste flow in the city rivers that are equivalent to the Charles in Boston or The Chicago River in Chicago; Prostitution and drugs are rampant.

In Beijing, China, the pollution is so thick you think you're in the fog; People wheel carts around full of trash, reminiscent of the "Bring out your dead" scene from the Monty Python movie.

When I have been in these true Hell Holes, I've counted the minutes till I would get back to Meredith and the lake. Sure there has been development and sure there are knuckleheads who do stupid things, but none of us are living in squalor and filth and to refer to the area as a Hell Hole is ignorant and disrespectful.