I’ve never read an article written by David Middlecamp before, and I never will again. I woke up Saturday morning feeling fabulous, and at 80 that means that nothing has slid, swollen or leaked. So I grab the coffee and pick up the paper and see the article about the dolphins and whale at Avila. (“Photos from the Vault: Tribune reported on a whale of a tale,” Aug. 25.) I love dolphins, so I start to read.

Well, David M. sure knows how to screw up a lovely day. I cannot begin to understand why he felt we needed to know how to kill a whale in the most painful, inhumane ways possible; why he had to go to great lengths to tell me how to make a bomb-lance; and how many were hurled into the whale. Well, I quit reading with that info. If Middlecamp thinks this graphic stuff makes for light reading, I would hate to see his bookshelves: “The Life and Times of Jack the Ripper,” “A Few of My Favorite Bullfights,” and “Cockfighting is Cool.” I’ll stick with Bill Morem ... he likes animals.

Editor’s note: The portion of Middlecamp’s column that refers to the bloody business of whaling was an excerpt of a Tribune story from 1880.