Thank you to the lovers and haters alike

info During my father’s final years, when asked “How are you doing?” he would respond “Well, I’m still here.”

I’m beginning to feel that way about this column. I’m still here.

And I’m very thankful for that.

It’s going on 12 years now that I left Bozeman and I’ve written a column every week since then. All but a handful have seen print.

There are times when I wonder if anyone is reading. Months will pass and I’ll get little or no feedback.

Then I’ll write about a topic that touches a nerve (gun control, old dogs, wilderness spring to mind) and I’m reminded how many people still read the paper.

Last week’s column on the Secretary of the Interior was one such column. The response was overwhelming. Many readers liked it, but plenty didn’t, which is the way I like it.

It’s no fun to preach to the choir. I’ve always preferred to rattle cages. I thank the editors at the Chronicle and PCN for allowing me to do so. After all, they’re the ones who take the angry phone calls.

Not that I don’t get a few myself, usually first thing in the morning when I’m barely awake.

“Who do you think you are?” is a common refrain of the offended parties who’ve obviously been working up a good mad before dialing.

I used to stress whatever point I’d been trying to make in the column at issue, but after a few years began to realize the futility of such an argument with someone whose mind is made up and is on the fight. Now I just say thanks for reading, sorry you didn’t like it.

There’s another column to write, and slow-witted as I am, dwelling on the last one won’t get the next one written. Readers, on the other hand, are touched by particular columns that they can relate to in either a good or bad way. I have to move on. They don’t.

So thank you for the positive feedback. It’s encouraging to discover there are others out there who feel the same way about certain things as I do.

And thank you to the haters who fuel my self-doubt. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that the older I get the more I realize how little I know.

Like my father, I’m still here until I’m not.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected].