Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Heat is on, but letters drought ends

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Brooks Peterson

Monday, August 27, 2001
Heat is on, but letters drought ends

Fair's fair, wouldn't you say? That being the case, there's something I need to say to you - or at least to a whole bunch of you:
   Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
   Four weeks ago, I used this space for an impassioned appeal - or, depending on how you read it, a prolonged whine - urging you, the readers, to help us overcome the letters-to-the-editor deficit we were experiencing. For whatever reason - summer doldrums, vacations, pervasive malaise - the Letters column had contracted to a mere pale ghost of its former self.
   We were in dire, if not desperate, straits. What to do? Maybe use REALLY BIG TYPE so the letters we did have would take up more space? A little too obvious.
   Then came what I can only call a cartoon moment - you know, when you find a little angel on one of your shoulders and a little devil on the other, each urging you to do his/her bidding - and I thought fleetingly about slapping together some, er, internally generated (read: phony) letters.
   No. No no no. That would violate our sacred covenant with all you nice people. Such Things Are Not Done. Not to mention the fact that you'd see right through it.
   The only recourse, then, was simply to throw ourselves on your mercy and print a groveling appeal to you to get back to your work stations and get some correspondence into the pipeline.
   And darned if you didn't do it.
   Within a matter of a week - possibly a little more - we were awash in letters, including some from people we had begun to worry about. (Did they drop off the edge of the earth?) To those of you who had for whatever reason forsaken us, welcome home - and keep 'em coming.
   Serious fear and loathing
   Of course, those of us who have been around for a while realize that every solution contains in itself the seed of another problem. And sure enough, our embarrassment-of-riches situation has given rise to a couple of situations we need to work through before they give rise to some serious fear and loathing.
   First - how do we put this without sounding like a heel? - a few of you have responded with a generosity that borders on the profligate. Not just a letter; not just a couple of letters. No: six, seven, maybe eight letters. And some of them have been real dandies.
   Except . . . in order to keep the most possible space available to the greatest possible number of letter-writers, we have this rule that limits each of you to one submission per 30 days. (The only exception: If you write a letter which prompts a critical letter in reply from another reader, the 30-day rule is waived so you can get in your response to his/her response.)
   And there's another little matter: Now, I am one who is all too familiar with the perils of wordiness. Back in the long ago when I was a rookie reporter, my own failings in this direction won me an unforgettable critique from my city editor, the equally unforgettable Norm White: "Diarrhea of the typewriter," he growled. No, actually, it was more like a snarl.
   So we know exactly where you're coming from, believe me: You get up a good head of steam, the wheels are going around, the sparks are fairly flying from the keyboard . . . and whammo: you've written a 400-word letter.
   You cut or we cut
   Now, we can give you a little slack on the 200-word maximum, but only a little. Confronted by a 400-word letter, we have two choices, neither of them palatable: Cut it ourselves, in which case we can look forward to getting one of those phone calls lambasting us for editing out the best, absolute best, material . . . or consign it to the memory hole. Don't like having your stuff cut? Neither do I - so you'll be doing yourself and us a big favor by hewing to that ol' 200-word thing.
   We're not complaining, understand: We're luxuriating in all these letters - sort of like Walt Disney's Scrooge McDuck jumping headfirst into that enormous vault full of money - and we just want to make the letters experience as satisfying to you as it is to us.
   Keep 'em coming . . . please.

   Brooks Peterson can be contacted at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com.



Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com

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