Letters to the Editor: Dear Eddie,

The latest salvo of silly incivilities in the Sun’s letters section hit a little close to home. Having foisted some of my own personal problems on the public via that medium, I wondered (my adoring fans not withstanding) if my own public beeves are perceived as some of the other rabid rantings are. I have backed off in the past because one soon realizes that it is not about the message after awhile but about wounded egos, gotchas and the perception that one is really quite clever on the printed page and that soon the New Yorker or the New York Post will come calling to have us take over the editorial section.
It also occurred to me that while at the Ear, we never received the kind of frothing that people like to vent in the Sun’s pages. It was always yes, please and thank you, and the ever so infrequent, “nice job”, which you will also be hard pressed to see in the Daily. I have personally told Nate when I think he has nailed a story, but I have never seen a letter that praises his prose or his Mickey Spillane like keenness for detail on the Maureen MacDonald murder case or taking to task the County Commissioner known as the “Minister of Tourism” for her outsized spending habits.
I’m sure I’ve never seen a letter praising Lloyd for his sports reportage, although several tele-talkers did mention him for canonization by having a Kennett High sports facility named after him. No, most of the letters, much like my own, tend to be self serving and have a certain quality of “can dish it out but can’t take it.”
Once I talked to Rob Figuly about doing a “personality piece” in another publication. He demurred, and said he would get back to me but I knew he never would. That kind of paranoia does not take kindly to the light of day, even though I assured him it was a fluff piece. If he had seen the other ones I did, he might have been tempted by the possibility of a little flattery. But his antennae were up and it is the Valley’s loss, I suppose.
There aren’t a lot of letter writers like Ron (the collective sigh out there is almost audible) but over the years there have been some pretty persistent pens that have embellished those same pages with their bombast. One thinks of the Susan Bruce fans who claim that she is a know nothing feminazi whose politics are to the left of Manny Ramirez (not his politics, his position). Don’t these guys love to jump all over her, so to speak. They rant, they rave, they accuse her of giving away the government. But it can’t be lost on anyone that they read her. What works better for a writer than knowing you have a loyal following that read every letter you type?
In a way, it is surprising how well most of the letters are written. Almost always with passion but also well organized (I said most) and grammatically appropriate, if not up to Catholic School or AP standards. I especially enjoy when students write in and we all muse that the kid’s mother wrote it. Naw, I’ve seen lots of stuff from High Schoolers that would put most adults to shame. I was recently at Williams College, on the top of almost anybody’s get into list, and three Kennett kids are matriculated there and bolstering up the school’s ski teams.
I don’t always have time to read all the letters nor do I want to take from my precious store of unused time to try to fathom what Laura Slitt will be going on (and on) about this time. Pavlov tells me that it’s going to be something about how people should not eat meat because it hurts the cows feelings, nor should they raise rats to help cure cancer. How ever much validity her point may have, I wonder how many readers she has convinced to come to her side over the years of beating that same drum.
Today’s batch of bashing concerning Ken Martin’s dust up with the Couture Construction Co., Children Un-Ltd, Carol Hounsell and Dawn James is classic. Imagine all the players are under five feet tall and at recess with no teacher around. One of them is suggesting that the footwear of one of the other’s mother came from the military, while the next one is challenging, “O yeah, you wanna bet?” and still another is injecting the heart piercing and ego crushing, “nanny nanny boo boo.” Yet, however unbecoming for adults, it is pretty good theater and where I work, it was the talk of the town for about four and a half minutes.