20-Year-Old Hate Mail
I had an experience last week that was just too weird not to write about. I received some hate mail about a column I wrote 20 years ago. Equally as weird, it was from a good friend of mine and written years before we met.
Bart Everson, who was one of my best writers when I edited BC Magazine and who is also a small-scale celebrity, having created the first TV show to be broadcast on the Internet, posted a message on a list we're both on asking if I remembered our first interaction. I reminded him that it was when he applied to write for me at BC, but he replied that he had recently uncovered evidence to the contrary. Bart is the ultimate self-documentarian, meticulously recording and preserving every aspect of his own life; in doing so, he recently unearthed some old word processor files from around the time I was writing my column for the Indiana Daily Student. In them he found this letter addressed to the paper:
Indiana Daily Student
Ernie Pyle Hall 120
Bloomington, IN 47405
Apr. 25, 1991
Regarding Bill Bauer's, "Journeys through darkest feminity":
At least one male of the species was embarassed by this coulumn.
"Bitches in the Mist"? Mr. Bauer, how could you?
Sincerely,
Bart Everson
Class of '90
I especially liked the "how could you?" part...sounds like something someone would say to Santa Claus if he just suddenly started punching out toddlers for no good reason.
Anyway, the letter had never been printed and I had never seen it, leading us both to believe that perhaps he failed to mail it. Another indicator was the presence of misspellings and typos, which Bart is generally not known for. He likely would have proofread it before sending it in.
I actually wrote about this column and the reaction to it in my quotational biography here. Bart asked if I could mail him a copy of the original column, which I did. Upon reading it he told me he didn't understand what he was originally so upset about.
I blame the 1990s.
Bart Everson, who was one of my best writers when I edited BC Magazine and who is also a small-scale celebrity, having created the first TV show to be broadcast on the Internet, posted a message on a list we're both on asking if I remembered our first interaction. I reminded him that it was when he applied to write for me at BC, but he replied that he had recently uncovered evidence to the contrary. Bart is the ultimate self-documentarian, meticulously recording and preserving every aspect of his own life; in doing so, he recently unearthed some old word processor files from around the time I was writing my column for the Indiana Daily Student. In them he found this letter addressed to the paper:
Indiana Daily Student
Ernie Pyle Hall 120
Bloomington, IN 47405
Apr. 25, 1991
Regarding Bill Bauer's, "Journeys through darkest feminity":
At least one male of the species was embarassed by this coulumn.
"Bitches in the Mist"? Mr. Bauer, how could you?
Sincerely,
Bart Everson
Class of '90
I especially liked the "how could you?" part...sounds like something someone would say to Santa Claus if he just suddenly started punching out toddlers for no good reason.
Anyway, the letter had never been printed and I had never seen it, leading us both to believe that perhaps he failed to mail it. Another indicator was the presence of misspellings and typos, which Bart is generally not known for. He likely would have proofread it before sending it in.
I actually wrote about this column and the reaction to it in my quotational biography here. Bart asked if I could mail him a copy of the original column, which I did. Upon reading it he told me he didn't understand what he was originally so upset about.
I blame the 1990s.