Unsigned letters reveal more than writers intend

Ray Mosby

Guest Columnist

“Well, she wrote me a letter, said she couldn’t live without me no more…”                                      —Wayne Carson Thompson

ROLLING FORK—While in the apparently never ending process of gathering up my “papers’ that a respectable university for some reason wants to include in their collection of such, I ran across a couple of old Letter to the Editor files which reminded me again of a couple of truths in this crazy business.

One is that the number and fervor of Letters to the Editor about any subject tend to be in inverse proportion to the importance of that subject, and the other is other is how much I despise unsigned letters.

There are all manner of splendid sounding elevated journalistic reasons why newspapers shouldn’t and don’t publish letters from folks that don’t sign them, but the best reason may be that there already exists a forum for idiots—social media.

And by the way,  any letter that is signed “concerned citizen” was written by someone who will lie to you about other things, as well. If a citizen were truly concerned, he or she would either do something about his or her gripe or have the courage to identify themselves when they want me to do it.

A couple of years back, I got one “concerned citizen” letter from somebody saying “I would  like to express my gratitude to the Rolling Fork Police Dept. for the fine job they demonstrate every day.” The accuracy of that perception notwithstanding, why in the world wouldn’t the writer of such a nice and innocuous statement not want to identify him or herself? It might get ‘em out of a traffic ticket, if nothing else. Go figure.

I got one from a fellow (I’m pretty sure) who began his diatribe with “I know you don’t have the guts to print this…” Then, why bother, dude? Yeah, I actually did have the guts to print it, but I also had just a little too much sense to do so, as well, considering it contained nary a grain of truth and would have libeled half the folks in town.

As you might expect, this column and the accompanying editorial, both of which I write, tend to inspire some of the more vitriolic and passionate letters, some of them just idiotic ranting, of course, but some of them quite well reasoned and literate. I wish the authors of the latter would have identified themselves; I would have enjoyed having discussions with them.

But there really is an eye-of-the-beholder element to these things. Why, over the years, I have alternately (and quite paradoxically) been called a racist, an N-word lover, a fascist, a commie pinko, a right-wing muckraker and a bleeding heart liberal. And, naturally, I have also been called a few other things that are not quite suitable for repetition and on more than one occasion have been told to go perform an anatomical impossibility on myself.

I hope the writers felt better after such ventings, because fact is, that sort of thing doesn’t have much effect one way or the other on me. Can’t do this long with a thin skin, folks.

For some reason, I have a passel of them which start off: “I was appalled…” Those could be revealing, because if we have that many appalled people running around this town, there’s no wonder nobody ever gets anything done.

And, let’s see: I got one, which though unsigned, I am pretty sure was from a fellow who had threatened to kill me on at least three occasions, saying that he actually wanted to thank me for a story I had written. I was touched.

A while back I got a letter from a religious fanatic in Arkansas, who identified herself as a “God-fearing woman,” taking great offense at a column I had written about another religious fanatic in Arkansas—an electrician-turned-prophet who saw visions of the end of the world, perhaps aided by his new voltage regular in a pill bottle.

There are some crazy damn people in this country, folks, a healthy number of whom seem to believe they have “special” relationships either with space aliens or the Almighty.

I actually got a letter one time that was signed “God,” but I was pretty skeptical about it, since I harbor some very serious doubts that should God choose to communicate with me, he would choose to do so scribbled on notebook paper with a blue Flair pen.

So folks, please keep those cards and letters coming in, but since you know my name, extend me the same courtesy—sign them.

(Ray Mosby is publisher of The Deer Creek Pilot in Rolling Fork.)