You Know What You Can Do!

My fiftieth column is coming up, in a month or so, and I know a lot of you are starting to wonder how to celebrate that momentous milestone.
There is some talk of a surprise party, another of a ‘cruise to nowhere’, and yet another group of dedicated readers that is in favor of a more formal recognition of my significant contributions to the public discourse: a plaque, speeches, and the like.
While I am not averse to any of the aforementioned activities, I would like to let you know that there is a simple, elegant, and relatively inexpensive way for you to let me know how much you appreciate these ‘ramblings’, and one that would also help to curry favor with my editors – a letter.
Not a personal letter mind you, scented or stuffed with cash, but rather a traditional, spur-of-the-moment, relatively inarticulate and hopefully angry letter – to the editor!
Is that too much to ask?
Actually, maybe it is too much to ask, or at least too much to hope for. After all, the average Plymouth resident has neither the time nor the vocabulary to communicate with me, regardless of the issue.
And I will freely admit that I have not done all that I might have done – to encourage the kind of raw emotional response that is so prized in journalistic circles.
Instead I have gone out of my way to be articulate, humorous, and self-deprecating.
Instead of writing about idiots, meatheads, thieves and perverts, I have written about moths and caterpillars, turkeys and Well Guys.
Instead of using my position to preach for the dissolution of the existing government and institutions, I have lobbied for a continuation of the traditional forms.
I guess it is a bit difficult to get readers riled up over a discussion of the various names of the thousand ponds of Plymouth.
There is not much controversy in the debate over whether we should call our local ice cream drink concoction a frappe, or a cabinet, or heaven forbid, a milkshake!
It is hard to argue with columns that wax poetic about snow, silence, and corn chowder.

Yes, I know it is difficult, but is that what friends are for?
For god’s sake, isn’t there anyone out there who can publicly disagree with me?

Maybe part of the problem is my intimidating intellectual abilities. Admit it, some of you don’t know what the heck I am talking about half the time.
Well, hey, there’s a nice subject for a letter.
Start off your diatribe by saying just that: “What the heck was that wacko Frank Mand talking about the other day, in his column about the Billington Brothers?”
Maybe part of the problem is that I am too concerned with ideas, too little with people.
The truth is I would love to have a local version of Trump or Martha to make fun of;
Every knows that a power-mad local cop makes for great copy;
A truly corrupt politician or civil servant is worth a half dozen columns or more.
So why don’t I go on the personal attack more often?
Honestly, I just don’t think we have anyone who really fits the bill.
As towns go, ye old Plymouth is relatively tame, relatively honest.
My biggest criticism of the town and its leaders overall is that they are unimaginative: not exactly a tar and feathering offense.
But if you know better, if you have the skinny, the inside dope, if you can name names well then do so now: preferably in a lovely, bitter, lengthy letter to the editor.
And while you are at it, you might wonder, ‘out loud’, why I don’t seem to be as bitter and angry as you are.
You might infer, imply or come right out and suggest that my silence on these and other allegedly controversial issues, is a clear sign of a deliberate attempt to suppress the truth.
I am not saying any of that is true, just that it wouldn’t do any harm (to me) for you to suggest that.
Conspiracies are great –for everyone involved.
You know, when I think about what I might want to commemorate my fiftieth column, a public accusation that I am at the heart of a giant conspiracy to suppress the truth, well that ranks right up there with the Cruise to Nowhere.
And if you did write a letter suggesting such a conspiracy, though I can’t promise anything, I can say that there is a high likelihood that I would have to respond with an angry column, defending myself, and naming you personally.
And well, after that, I’d be on my way towards, well -to be perfectly frank, towards another fifty columns about raccoons in the attic, the kingdom of Walmart, and the Billington Boys.

Don’t like it? You know what you can do!