We Have No Idea What This Letter Is About, But We’re Running It Anyway
Damn! Let me explain.
Everything is perfect this morning, the weather, the friendly people (even the woman, too wired to hear my “hello,” smiles in response) as I’m walking along the trail near my home and I’m beginning to calm down.
It really is a wonderful world, I’m thinking, and we’re going to come to our senses, stop making enemies everywhere and clean up our planet. We’re even going to do it in time for my great-granddaughter to get a good education, to be free to explore, to find the work she has a passion for, and to live a fulfilling life among loving peers. I’m feeling good — full of hope and feeling really good — and telling myself that the strange looking little birdie who flew off my windowsill with wings flapping out of sync was only a dream; I pull up from the diaphragm and step up my pace.
I’m feeling free and safe and I’m thinking about how to write “the state of Arizona and its refusal to abolish the death penalty is evidence that we’ re too addicted to vengeance to see that the killers we kill are actually suffering from mental illness because we don’t want to see our periodic act of legal homicide as insane,” without insulting anybody, and I’m wondering if background checks would have prevented that pro-war woman (who pushed me off the sidewalk and tried unsuccessfully to grab my peace sign) from acquiring the handgun she had stuck in her belt — when an unleashed dog comes out of nowhere to interrupt my thinking just as I’m getting a few letters-to-the-editor written in my mind.
He’s followed by a couple of middle-aged guys who look familiar and when the spokesperson says, “Yeah, yeah, we know ‘he’s a sweet dog, but he should be on a leash,'” I remember we’d met before.
“Right,” I say, “I like even sweet dogs on a leash when I’m walking here.” (I’ve been badly bitten by guard dogs that broke out of their yard and every time a strange dog comes running toward me I get a flashback.)
“We like dogs off the leash. It’s a beautiful morning!” He gives me a John McCain smile and I don’t have to be a reformed fortuneteller to read that he’s actually saying, “Get a life, you petty old bitty,” and he adds, “We’re sweet, too, and so are you,” as his companion giggles. “Sweet? I’m a cranky old woman and,” having been arrested five or six times for civil disobedience it takes some chutzpah for me to add, “you’re breaking a city ordinance and I’m a responsible citizen!”
They never break their stride and I don’t hear their smart-ass last words and I doubt they hear mine even though I’m shouting, “Grow up!”
Damn! If the day ever comes for the meek to inherit the earth it’s not likely that I’ll be among that number.
-Gretchen Nielsen
CORRECTION
In the Rhythm & Views review of Run Boy Run’s new album, So Sang the Whippoorwill (Mar. 14), we inadvertently included the cover art for their previous album. Apologies to Run Boy Run. The correct cover now appears online. It really is a delightful album. Check it out.
This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2013.
As a runner I have been bitten on numerous occasions by “sweet dogs”. I carried mace for years and have used it on both the dog and owner. This has happened in Mich, Cali, AZ, NY, NM and OH. Each and every incident ended with police responding because the dog walker thought I was at fault, and each and every time the police sided with me and twice issued citations to the dog owner. People who do not follow the rules of common decency with their dogs don’t deserve them.
I’m surprised that you would run a perfectly legible and intelligible piece with the heading “we don’t know what this is about but we are running it anyway”–it just seems so disrespectful! I thought that letters to the editor were OUR chance, as readers, to express ourselves and to opine, not yours. You have the whole newspaper to get your point of view across. If you are going to be so frankly rude about someone’s letter, simply don’t print it. But printing it and then ridiculing the person who wrote it (especially when its not rocket science to figure out what its about-) seems really unnecessary. All of that aside, I take it as a perfectly reasonable story about someone crashing back to Earth, with all of the human idiots contained thereon, after happily composing “lets make it better” letters in her head. Full disclosure: I know this woman, brilliant, creative and open-minded, and I am a dog owner who likes her dogs off leash. So I think I truly DO know what this letter is about. Notwithstanding, I make it a point to be respectful of others’ preferences when it comes to my dogs. AND I agree that when it comes to the meek inheriting the earth, I won’t be in that number. An apology from you would be nice, but some interest and a desire to understand what is written would be even nicer.