I wrote this piece in 1998 in the middle of my five years as a California newspaper columnist. It will be one of the pieces in a collection I’m compiling called “Humor and Heart: 40 Years as a Columnist” that will be published later this year. I hope you enjoy it.
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I’m being stalked. Oh, it’s not one of those creepy Spielberg things. I don’t think my pursuer has any physical interest in me.
Initially, I wasn’t even sure it was a man or a woman.
You see, I’ve never met my stalker. To this point, we’ve had a one-way communication, courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service.
It started some months back, when I opened my mail one day to find a copy of the previous day’s column. I wasn’t sure why anyone would send me my column. They must have realized I already had seen it
Then I looked more carefully.
The column had been corrected in several places with a red marker.
Whoever had sent it disagreed with my choice of words in one or two places, and had found one other place where I had made a grammatical error.
I looked at the envelope for a return address.
There was none.
I looked inside the envelope for a note.
Again, nothing.
There was only an envelope addressed to me and a corrected copy of my column.
I asked several of my colleagues if they knew someone who made a habit of correcting writers’ work.
No one did.
I put it away and forgot about it.
A few months later, it happened again.
And again.
There was no way to identify who was doing the writing, and whoever it was never made any other attempt to get in touch with me.
No phone calls.
No beautiful women telling me I was misusing the pluperfect subjunctive.
No Bat signal stabbing the sky, letting me know that I’d better hop into the Columnistmobile and do my part for truth, justice and the American language.
Just letters.
Last week, my stalker upped the ante. He/she included a note with two corrected columns. The message – written on an actual Post-it note – contained only two sentences.
“You write a nice, gentle column. You need a remedial English class.”
No signature, but for the first time, I felt I had a clue.
The handwriting.
I couldn’t be certain, but the note looked as if it had been written by a woman. I asked a few other people around the newsroom – none of them certified handwriting experts – and they all agreed with me.
I could at least begin talking about my stalker as a female and use the pronouns “she” and “her” to describe her.
I did wonder why she had finally included a communication other than just the ubiquitous red marker.
Maybe it was one of the corrections she felt she had to make that really upset her.
I’ll admit it. I write in a conversational style. I do it intentionally. I’m not George Will or Bill Safire. I’m just a guy trying to tell stories and be entertaining in the process.
So in one of the column, in two places in the same paragraph, I abbreviated the words “it would” with the contraction “it’d.”
Her comment was brief. “What kind of language is this? My God.”
I hadn’t made an English teacher that upset since 11th grade, when I accidentally backed over Mrs. Krupke’s French poodle Charles De Gaulle Jr. in the school parking lot.
I have to admit I’ve been criticized before.
In 1987, when I was writing a sports column for a Colorado newspaper, I received a comment from one of the judges that bothered me a little.
Along with a certificate for first place, I got the following comment:
“He writes a nice column, but he isn’t going to knock anyone off the best-seller lists anytime soon, because his literary aspirations aren’t all that high.”
If I were brighter, I probably would have felt offended by that comment. That judge made me sound like – horror of horrors! – a lowbrow.
The kind of guy who watched “The Drew Carey Show” instead of “Masterpiece Theatre.
The kid of guy who couldn’t find his way to the J. Paul Getty Museum with a road map.
The kind of guy who would rather go to the movies than the opera.
I’m not that bad.
I do enjoy Drew Carey, but I did sit through “Masterpiece Theatre” once.
I’ve been to the Getty, although not since it reopened.
I even went to an opera three or four years ago. I can’t remember if it was “Der Chocolat Mousse” or “Das Magik Tuba,” but it was definitely an opera and not a musical comedy.
I think those are points in my favor.
Aside from that, I’m a fairly ordinary guy trying to write an entertaining column.
I’m never going to receive a lifetime achievement award from Edwin Newman, and I doubt I’ll ever be asked to teach a course in the proper use of adverbs.
I hope my anonymous critic understands that and cuts me a little slack in the future.
Unless it’s Mrs. Krupke who’s been stalking me.
That woman is never going to forgive me.