Writing newspaper columns — serious topics, local issues, attempts at humor — is one of my passions.
Humor in print is not easy.
My one son affirms without hesitation that I am neither funny in person nor print. The other is rather Switzerlandish in his assessment.
When I wrote for the Indianapolis Star — which I did for several years — some of what I considered my funniest columns elicited viscous hate mail.
When the Queen of England — remember her? — had been on the throne for 50 years, I wrote that that was a long time for anyone to sit on anything, especially a throne.
That line evoked angry responses even though it made me giggle for days.
I still think it’s funny.
My 700 words on how to make a perfect cup of tea almost got me tarred and feathered. Compromising, permitting the use of teabags, got readers riled up but suggesting the milk goes in the cup first was beyond the pale.
“Scandalous,” wrote one ruthless reader.
When I dubbed New Zealand’s typical cuisine as “beyond bland” I got emails from a dozen time zones away hurling very polite insults.
Kiwis are awfully nice even when trying not to be.
A seasoned Indianapolis Star columnist sent me a note saying I am funny but my readers are not.
That helped.
I forget the content but one Saturday morning – my Indianapollis Star column ran on Saturdays – I received this at the crack of dawn: YOU ARE SLOW AND STUPID.
The email bore a name and phone number.
I called the reader whom I knew to be awake since he’d just emailed me and told him I had just read his email and thanked him for his readership. He said the only part he got wrong was the slow part.
In response to a recent local murder of a wife by a husband I wrote a column headlined “Could He Kill You?”
That morning I opened my email to an all-caps death threat.
Later, on leaving my home, I found a bowl of beautiful flowers and a handwritten anonymous card at my door.
“Thank you for today’s column. You may have saved my life.”
Thank you.
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