The Long Awaited Mailbag!

     Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I have the greatest readers ever! Not only do you read this drivel...you respond! Well, some of you respond. Anyway, as I told a few people a long time ago, I always hope for good, intelligent responses to my writing. And for the most part, you have far exceeded my expectations. And then there are my golf buddies. Anyway...the rules are, if you wrote something intelligent with sentences including nouns, verbs, and adjectives, I'll print it. If not, I'll rearrange it. Now most of these are texts, e-mails and phone calls. Since I have so many readers from around the world, I may have had to do a little translating (which I'm not very good at), and for those intercontinental phone calls, sometimes the static made it difficult to understand. So I hope I translated your call correctly. The Facebook crowd might be familiar with some of these, but I'm reposting them for the millions of readers who actually save my website in their browser under FAVORITES!!!! You are such an idiot, Peter. Let's start with the positive ones!

    From G. DeLong in Longmeadow, Massachusetts: "Thanks. You are now my favorite nephew." This is a verbatim text I got from my Uncle Gary on November 27, 2021. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything I wrote. But you lead with a winner!

    From K. MacNeil in Massachusetts: "Well written and fitting tribute to your Mom and a life continuing to be well-lived." Mr. MacNeil is one of the original G's. By that I mean, he assisted in teaching me the game of golf, as well as introducing me to the band Little Feat. So feel free to hate Kevin now! And he's a helluva guitarist. "Kevin, we have to jam together again." I owe him a lot...and it pains me to admit that!

    From PHS 80: "Thanks for the warm thoughts about your cousin Tim. It's been so long, sometimes we forget the details of classmates. He will be missed." I can't thank everyone enough for their comments, texts, and emails regarding Tim. 

    I got a lot of comments and responses regarding the various pictures on my Facebook page. For you non-Facebook readers, I decided to rotate some photos I have taken over the last decade. Some are very special to me. Thanks for noticing.

    From C. Guezlo in Brazil: "Pedro...what beautiful pictures you show us on your FB page. By the looks of these you are no doubt the Da Vinci with a camera of your country. Please keep lifting our hearts to the beauty of your photographic talent." I might have mis-translated some of these remarks but, Mr. Guezlo, thank you for your kind words. The photos I've put up recently are local shots from Tyler State Park here in Pennsylvania, Bucks County. The photos you are referring to are special pictures from West Virginia taken in another time and place. I'm sure I'll put those pictures up again now that I know what they mean to you, and I'm sure others. It's amazing what can happen with inspiration and an iPhone!

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And now the ugly comments! I'm guessing that many readers didn't want to vent publicly about a couple of my pieces, and I understand that. But I still appreciate the e-mails, texts and voice messages. Colorful, to say the least.

    From J. Trudeau: How dare you accuse Canada of being complicit in the burning of books! I am personally opposed to the burning of books. But if someone wants to do it, well...that's their business. Thanks for your backbone, Justin. I'm sure free-thought everywhere is raising a Molson in your honor. Idiot.

    From K. Jones, et al, of Tullytown, Pa: What kind of prick are you and how dare you denigrate the transgender movement! We have every right to involve ourselves in every aspect of society, whether it's collegiate swimming where a friend of mine at Penn just won practically every race and ruined the possible careers of scores of young girls or those track and field races you wrote about. If these men say they are women, then they are women! Asshole! I have no idea how to respond to that nicely. To be honest, what I've written above is an amalgam of several e-mails and texts that, while I expected because of the topic, I was not prepared for the vitriol. I don't remember being disrespectful to Trans-people (if that's the correct phrase). I just don't think...oh, screw it, I give up. I'll keep writing and you keep e-mailing. What the writer(s) does not understand is how this encourages me to be even more, how shall I put it, annoying!

    From S. Abraham of Holland, Pa: Peter, I was expecting a little more vitriol towards the hospital that employed your mother well into her senior years. It seems like malpractice to me. Thank you for your e-mail Dr. Abraham, and you are correct. There was a lot of talk in our family as my mother kept pushing off retirement. Accuse me of ageism, but I think it was abhorrent for Lower Bucks Hospital to keep my mother employed at the age of 83 as a Nursing Supervisor. Really? A Nursing Supervisor! That's not exactly the janitor. I mean, c'mon...I love my Mom, and she's as coherent as the next 83-year-old, but she goes through 3 or 4 names before she gets to me. Can you imagine if she signed a sheet or consulted and approved something that was out of line because she might have just not been up to the task? It's not personal, it's just how it works with seniors. And I understand that she kept wanting to be in the arena, so to speak, and she might read this and get pissed off, but that doesn't mean they had to open the door and let her in, year after year after year. Shame on Lower Bucks. But that's another article that will be forthcoming.

    And finally, from T. Chen of Washington, DC: Mr. Hall, thank you for your comments on the plight of Peng Shuai. As I write this to you, a Chinese-American that has found an incredible joy living here in America, I have no idea what her status is. And I am well aware that whatever her status, it will, over time, be lost in the American news cycle...whether that means sports news or the more politically oriented news channels. I understand that your blog has been more of a humor/personal column over the years as opposed to a hardcore political opinion site...but I wanted to say thank you for bringing to light the tragedy, dare I say the horror of Ms. Shuai, that can only be appreciated by those of us who have lived it...whether it be the Jews of the Holocaust, those that the Japanese decimated before and during WWII, or the multiple ethnic cleansings in Africa during the 20th century. I say to you, keep writing...keep bringing a little levity to life, but please keep reminding us of what is not right.

Mr. Chen...I promise.