For all those who send me hate mail, insulting messages, and threats

.

I’m suddenly feeling guilty.  I’ve been neglectful, and I’m sorry.

So I want to reassure you:

Please don’t think that your efforts go unnoticed.

It’s true that I never reply.  But I promise that I almost always skim through what you’ve sent me.

And — you’ll like this! — I keep your notes.  I don’t just trash them.  In fact, I have a special file for them.  (No.  Not the proverbial “round file.”  A computer file.  And, for older or less technically savvy messages, a physical file.)

I never read your notes to my wife; she takes such things much more to heart than I do.  And I’m not sure that I’ve ever gone back and re-read any of your notes.  But I keep them.  They’re preserved for posterity.  I don’t just toss them away, and, someday perhaps, someone else will have the opportunity to appreciate and enjoy your work.

Twice, I’ve even reported especially striking messages to the local police.

(I’m not counting the restraining order that we got from a judge at least a decade and a half ago, because that one concerned FARMS as a whole, not just me.  And I’m not counting the lawsuit that was served on me by that anti-Mormon preacher down in southern California, even though dealing with it partially occupied roughly two entertaining and educational years of my life.  I regard that one — including the 87-page legal complaint that was presented to me — as being in a class by itself.  Alas, though, the judge ultimately dismissed the whole thing “with extreme prejudice,” or something to that effect.  But the thought was there!)

I understand, and the police patiently explain, that there’s essentially nothing that they can do about vague but menacing threats.  Still, as I tell them, I want investigators to have such writers in their records should I ever disappear or die under strange circumstances.  (One of you apparently has quite a file, in several jurisdictions in separate western states.  What a life of satisfying accomplishment!)

Well, I feel better now.  I don’t want you to fear that all your time and energy have been in vain.  You’re appreciated!

Posted from Atlanta, Georgia