HARBESON: As always, columnist excited to hear from readers!!!

Columns

Related Photos

Discussion

November 19, 2009

By DEBBIE HARBESON The News and Tribune Thu Nov 19, 2009, 01:02 AM EST

In my last letters column, “Want To Be Pen Pals?,” I mentioned one letter writer who was a bit enamored with the exclamation point. Evidently he’s not the only one, because I received several e-mails from others who feel the same.

Matt wrote this: “Just wanted to drop you a note to let you know I enjoy your column!!!!!!”

Then Mike wrote a nice note that ended with this: “I added my address just in case you want to send me a hand-written letter!!!!!!!!!”

I did send him a letter. Well, actually, it was a card. He e-mailed me back: “Debbie, I received the card the other day. Thanks, for thinking of me. I don’t get much regular mail, since they invented e-mail. I was going to send you a letter, but the only paper I could find here on the farm was the Sears & Roebuck catalog.

“I have to keep it for special purposes, and I was afraid I’d run short, since the spring catalog don’t come out ’til March. I read your column about selling booze on Sunday. I agree with you. We have far too many controls on every aspect of our lives, by the government, to feel we are a free country. If ol’ Tom Jefferson was here, He’d be Appalled!!!”

I’m not so sure he’s right about Jefferson. I don’t think he’d be appalled to learn how Mike uses the Sears catalog.

I actually did gain a pen pal. Susan and I have corresponded several times and I knew we had a lot in common. After all, she wrote that she believes in ideas like “… individual responsibility and voluntary action within a cooperative society rather than the involuntary coercion and tyranny we so often labor under today.”

I noticed someone wrote a letter to the editor in response to my column on Baron Hill’s YouTube misadventure. That reader was disappointed but I also received this response from Dave: “…You made a good comparison with ‘quality assurance purposes’. I never thought of it that way. I’ve seen the video. You could have made it worse for Baron Hill. His stinky attitude really showed out.”

I’ve scanned this comment from Kim: “… I am always anxious to see what you have to say — and I am never disappointed. You say what a lot of us think!! I have cut out your articles many times and scanned them in for friends to read …”

Reader Frank does a nice job of one-upping a comment I made about pigs flying: “Pigs won’t simply fly; pigs will win dogfights against F-16s before you get rationality from elected officials.”

Finally, you may remember that I offered to send a book to the lady who wrote me a nice snail mail letter. Judith took me up on the offer so I mailed it to her and after a couple of weeks, she returned it. I’m not sure how we were able to accomplish this without taxing others for library services but we managed.

Judith again included a letter, where, among other things, she had this to say: “…Wonder of wonders, I did agree with Dr. Ruwart’s ideas on the marijuana problem. I am more convinced than ever that I shall remain an independent.”

Thanks to all the letter-writers out there. If you wrote to me and didn’t get included here, please note it has nothing to do with the space limitations. It means your letter was lacking in one of two areas — you didn’t use nearly enough exclamation points, or you didn’t compliment me nearly enough.

So feel free to try again.

Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson wonders if ol’ Tom Jefferson would be appalled at how he was used to set up a joke for this column.

Text Only | Photo Reprints

Columns

CLERE: Walkout is absurd
The walkout by Indiana House Democrats entered its third week yesterday as tensions continued to rise and misinformation proliferated.

March 7, 2011 1 Photo
LADD: New Albany has new energy
New Albany is evolving. Public art has become more prevalent in the downtown, drawing more locals and outside visitors to our community; bringing more publicity.

March 7, 2011 1 Photo
BEAM: Just smile
Whispers will soon abound outside of school as the corporation enters negotiations this summer with the teacher’s union over a new contract. Aides are not covered under the union.

February 7, 2012 1 Photo
HOWEY: Keeping Peyton in the Hoosier pantheon
The critics of keeping Manning suggest he would return to a team struggling to contend. I’m not buying that. The Colts were decimated for a second consecutive year with injuries, particularly on defense. With the top choice in each round, they can quickly reset, as San Francisco and Cincinnati did this year.

February 6, 2012 1 Photo
CUMMINS: How to live a stable life
Then I heard Newt Gingrich say that he will establish a colony on the moon by the end of his second term. I’d vote for him if he would go.

February 6, 2012 1 Photo
VAN HOY: What’s the point, anyway?
February 4, 2012 1 Photo
DODD: Taking shots with the mayor
February 4, 2012 1 Photo
NASH: We have to share the road
They are very predictable and almost every one of them say the same thing. They throw around words like “menace” and claim that the roads were meant for automobiles. It is always the same argument that bicycle riders don’t pay taxes and should be registered and be forced to get insurance just like cars.

February 3, 2012 1 Photo
STAWAR: Our family strategic plan
Objective 1: Consult tax professional to determine if contributions to job-seeking son, who has a college degree in fine arts, constitutes a charitable deduction (like supporting The Fund for the Arts).

February 3, 2012 1 Photo
HARBESON: Recycling: Will it ever stop coming around?
Is the Clark County mandatory recycling program finally against the ropes?
I hope so because I really don’t want to write yet another sequel to this sordid tale that would surely smell worse than Rocky’s armpits.

February 2, 2012 1 Photo
More Columns Headlines

Columns

Search Results

Related Photos

Discussion

HARBESON: As always, columnist excited to hear from readers!!!

Site Map

Contact Us