From the Mailbag

By Jeremy Gulley

This week I received a letter from a fan of our newspapers, who was not too happy with me. The reader used the name Fergie Fergie, and wrote:

“Recently read another one of your pompous columns,mostly about yourself and now about the games you play with your own children who you seem to tell us are they are the most important people in your life and hope they will think of you as a good father. Also understand you are a teacher of children also. And you think you exhibit caring, common sense and would like to raise good upstanding children to become good hopeful law abiding citizens to this community. And you make-up games on how to rob a bank?????????? Those are the kind of ideas you believe in putting in children of todays head?

Why don’t you start writing more worthwhile and important columns that pertain to more important issues of today than just yourself and your family. Most of us think our family and loved ones are just as important as you are or your family and we do not feel we have to write about our important, personal and private families in the newspaper to share with just anyone, when there are so many important topics and subjects a newspaper columnist needs to be writing about or teaching and sharing with us and what we need to learn and be informed of that pertains to us good people as a whole. Most of us have meaniful, special experiences with our own families and yours are not any more special or important,. Obviously.”

To which I replied:

Thank you for your feedback. I always appreciate the opinions of my readers, and will take yours into consideration. Yes, I play games with my kids, and sometimes we make up games that might seem off, obviously. I apologize if you are offended. It is all in fun, I assure you.

I have done my job as a columnist because, whether you like what you read or not, you are thinking about my ideas and entering into a conversation with me. Thank you for that as that is, above anything, my goal.

Do you mind sharing your real name so we can further legitimize the interaction? Also, I don’t think that my children or family experiences are more important, it’s just that I have a forum to share them, and I always write about what I am compelled to write. If you would like to share your experiences, we would love to see them and share them.

With respect,

Jeremy

As I thought about this letter, and the idea that I do take feedback seriously, I decided to make a change. I will, from now on, be writing about important issues in this column. I will be tackling the issues that are important to everyone.

Issue number one: Colorado used to be a part of Kansas, and we want it back. Yes, in the early days of western expansion, the mountains of Colorado used to be part of the Kansas Territory. But, because the governors of Kansas did not want to mess with the unruly gold miners and the unsavory characters that followed them, Kansas gave the mountains to Colorado.

Well, I don’t think miners are a threat now, and I think we should ask for our property back. We don’t want the Broncos, though, just the mountains.

Fergie Fergie, I hope that helps to satisfy your need for discussion of important issues. I’m here to please, but apparently not everyone.

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Posted by admin on Nov 10 2010. Filed under Jeremy Gulley, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry