I am "Listening"

To Virgil Vaupel

I am a little late in writing this note, as it has been on my mind since you started to get personal attacks against you and what you write. Better late than never, I hope.

I have traveled and lived over a large portion of the USA, and also have lived in Canada, and in those travels I have read many columns written in newspapers wherever I happened to be. I find that your columns are the most thought-provoking that I have read in many years. While I do not agree with you all of the time, (I don’t agree with anybody all the time!), I find that your style of writing induces me to use my mind and think.

One would almost assume that is what you have in your mind when you write your columns. When you are not making me think, you are making me laugh. I also enjoy your grammar. One particularly great laugh you gave me was the story about the cow freezing in the field one winter. That was a great story.

Your column is the first thing that I read when I get the newspaper. I missed your column the 9th of December. I do not understand why the personal attacks against you. Have we changed from the land of the free to the land of political correctness? Or maybe it is the land of the hurt feelings. You most assuredly have a right to your opinions. The rest of us have a right to either read what you write or don’t read what you write. But I do not believe that we have a particular right to complain publicly about you personally and what you write.

As I was taught when I was a child, “If you don’t have something good to say about a person, then don’t say anything.” Although I have never met you, I do think we could enjoy a conversation. Please keep writing. I am “listening.”

-David Biggar,

Glasgow