About 16 months ago, I returned from Montana. It was about the worst year of my life. I say that because there will probably be readers, after reading this, who will say, “If Montana is so progressive and you think Indiana is just a backward hick state, why you just go back there?”

Montana has no state sales tax. I believe this may be part because of a thriving legalized gambling economy. Casinos large and small are ubiquitous. Of the few bars I patronized, everyone of them had a bank of electronic poker machines. Periodically, state agents would come around, check the numbers on the machines, collect their cut from the establishment and be on their way. I heard no whiners about how gambling would bring down the stability of the community or any other perceived evil that these nut cases use to fight for their self-righteous cause. In Montana, no one gave it a second thought.

In the small town I was in, there was one liquor store, two groceries and a handful of gas stations. I can’t say for the other stations except the one I went to the most. There I could buy cold beer on a Sunday. At a gas station! Horrors! But, no one gave it a second thought.

Indiana lawmakers need to seriously overhaul all of our ridiculous, if not downright silly, blue laws – not the least of which are gambling and alcohol sales. To do anything less will only serve to perpetuate the perception of our great state as home to a bunch of backward hicks.

DAN HEADLEE Fort Wayne