Published: November 19, 2009 12:58 am      

HARBESON: As always, columnist excited to hear from readers!!!

In my last letters column, “Want To Be Pen Pals?,” I mentioned one letter writer who was a bit enamored with the exclamation point. Evidently he’s not the only one, because I received several e-mails from others who feel the same.

Matt wrote this: “Just wanted to drop you a note to let you know I enjoy your column!!!!!!”

Then Mike wrote a nice note that ended with this: “I added my address just in case you want to send me a hand-written letter!!!!!!!!!”

I did send him a letter. Well, actually, it was a card. He e-mailed me back: “Debbie, I received the card the other day. Thanks, for thinking of me. I don’t get much regular mail, since they invented e-mail. I was going to send you a letter, but the only paper I could find here on the farm was the Sears & Roebuck catalog.

“I have to keep it for special purposes, and I was afraid I’d run short, since the spring catalog don’t come out ’til March. I read your column about selling booze on Sunday. I agree with you. We have far too many controls on every aspect of our lives, by the government, to feel we are a free country. If ol’ Tom Jefferson was here, He’d be Appalled!!!”

I’m not so sure he’s right about Jefferson. I don’t think he’d be appalled to learn how Mike uses the Sears catalog.

I actually did gain a pen pal. Susan and I have corresponded several times and I knew we had a lot in common. After all, she wrote that she believes in ideas like “… individual responsibility and voluntary action within a cooperative society rather than the involuntary coercion and tyranny we so often labor under today.”

I noticed someone wrote a letter to the editor in response to my column on Baron Hill’s YouTube misadventure. That reader was disappointed but I also received this response from Dave: “…You made a good comparison with ‘quality assurance purposes’. I never thought of it that way. I’ve seen the video. You could have made it worse for Baron Hill. His stinky attitude really showed out.”

I’ve scanned this comment from Kim: “… I am always anxious to see what you have to say — and I am never disappointed. You say what a lot of us think!! I have cut out your articles many times and scanned them in for friends to read …”

Reader Frank does a nice job of one-upping a comment I made about pigs flying: “Pigs won’t simply fly; pigs will win dogfights against F-16s before you get rationality from elected officials.”

Finally, you may remember that I offered to send a book to the lady who wrote me a nice snail mail letter. Judith took me up on the offer so I mailed it to her and after a couple of weeks, she returned it. I’m not sure how we were able to accomplish this without taxing others for library services but we managed.

Judith again included a letter, where, among other things, she had this to say: “…Wonder of wonders, I did agree with Dr. Ruwart’s ideas on the marijuana problem. I am more convinced than ever that I shall remain an independent.”

Thanks to all the letter-writers out there. If you wrote to me and didn’t get included here, please note it has nothing to do with the space limitations. It means your letter was lacking in one of two areas — you didn’t use nearly enough exclamation points, or you didn’t compliment me nearly enough.

So feel free to try again.

Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson wonders if ol’ Tom Jefferson would be appalled at how he was used to set up a joke for this column.