Keep those letters coming

This is an apology to all the people whose letters I haven’t

answered. The pile on my desk measures about an inch-and-a-half,

going back quite awhile, all saved with the best of intentions -- and

the worst of execution. I can blame this on my age, my skills --

developed over six decades -- at procrastination, or just plain

lassitude.

About the only legitimate excuse I can offer is the removal of the

Pilot office from Bay Street -- where I dropped in weekly to pick up

mail -- to the old Times building, a place I seldom visited even when

I was writing a column for The Times. That habit hasn’t changed, so

the mail accumulates for weeks on end, until Nancy Hopper, our

receptionist, kindly gathers it up and sends it to me.

Actually, given the length of time it has accumulated, there

really isn’t that much backlog. Either my logic is so convincing that

it defies riposte or boring enough not to inspire it. But most of the

letters that do come merit a response, which is why I have this pile

on my desk. And guilt in my soul.

Some examples will illustrate. In the most recent batch I received

from Nancy, there was a package from BRC Imagination Arts that

designed the newly opened Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in

Springfield, Ill. I wrote about it in June without knowing there was

a legitimate local connection. The covering letter is from Bob

Rogers, BRC founder and chairman, who grew up in Orange County and

whose family, he writes, has been in Newport Beach since 1921. He’s

promised to leave a ticket for me at Will Call whenever I visit

Springfield.

There was also an invitation from Jean Ardell -- which reached me

about three months after the event -- to attend a signing of her book

called “Breaking Into Baseball,” which deals with the multiple

connections of women with the national pastime. It’s a book that

clearly would broaden the cultural terrain of my wife -- as well as

my own male chauvinism about women in sports.

There were several shots at my grammar, which I defend vigorously

on the grounds that it is permissible to break rules of grammar when

you know you are doing it. There were some welcome compatriots in my

celebration of the real martini, a thoughtful commentary from Kent

Moore urging the downsizing of county departments of education, notes

from “In Theory” regular Deborah Barrett and my fellow baseball

aficionado, Lefty Lavrakas, and a reminder of my tennis days from

Larry and Vivi Romine. And so it goes. No death threats.

UC Irvine was heard from through John Graham, professor of

international business and a candidate next week for the

congressional seat of Chris Cox. After reading my column on Marilyn

Brewer, he sent me a three-sentence letter that ended: “I want to

suggest that you talk to a moderate Democrat about all of this. I

volunteer.” Although his letter didn’t reach me until a few days

before the election, it was an offer I couldn’t resist -- especially

the brevity, which is hard to come by these days. So I called and

asked him what made him a moderate Democrat and he focused on two

points: fiscal responsibility and his stand on free trade.

He charged the Bush administration with the opposite of fiscal

responsibility, beginning in Iraq, where “the war we started is

turning into a slow disaster ... and we continue to spend money at

the rate of $7 billion per month.” And he sees free trade as a

powerful building block for international peace, pointing out that

“today’s trade-based economic interdependence precludes anyone from

attacking anyone.”

When I asked him if his otherwise hard line on Bush wasn’t

counter-productive in this Republican stronghold, he said it was his

sense that more and more voters are becoming highly dissatisfied with

the current administration.

Finally, there was a package of material from Armando Ruiz,

currently a trustee of the Coast Community College District and the

target of a recall effort by a group presently seeking the necessary

signatures. Ruiz was highly critical of my recent column in which I

signed on in support of the recall. He summarized what he alleged to

be the facts in the case that he claims his critics are both ignoring

and twisting. His version of the facts can be summed up in a single

phrase: his lawyers made him do it. He says that both his position on

the sale of KOCE and his misleading designation as an incumbent on

the ballot followed the recommendations of attorneys, which he was

obliged to follow. Those allegations should meet some interesting

challenges if this ever makes it to the ballot.

I don’t use an e-mail address because I don’t like to get e-mails.

They are too easy to dash off, mostly impulsive, off the top of the

head and demanding of a similar response, which I don’t do well. They

avoid the second thoughts that accompany the process of addressing

and stuffing an envelope and taking it to a mailbox.

Unanswered e-mails would also feed my guilt much more than letters

I can add to my pile with the patently absurd conviction that I’ll

get at them any day now.

The bottom line is that I like to get letters, whatever their

intent. I read them eagerly. Anytime you are moved to write, send it

to me at the Pilot or -- if you want a bigger audience -- to the

Forum page. Nancy and I are trying to upgrade our system so I get

your letters more quickly.

But I’m not going to promise something I probably won’t deliver,

like a prompt response -- or even any response at all. I will answer

some letters for unpredictable -- and quite possibly frivolous --

reasons and put others into the Must Answer pile where they will

quietly ferment.

So I clearly don’t deserve the people who take the time to write

to me. But I can promise that their letters will be read. And

appreciated.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights.