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Letters From Little Rock |
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a semi-regular column
Letters From Little Rock is my column on whatever topic strikes my fancy at the time. Check in as often as you like, but I make no promise as to when new columns will appear. I hope to add a column on a weekly basis, but honesty compels me to admit that I might not even maintain a monthly schedule. September 25, 2004 First order of business is the new name for this column: Letters from Little Rock. I've been calling it Irregular Thoughts since the start of the year. It turns out there is a blog out there that has been using that title for at least a couple of years now. I searched the internet before I started using the name and found no sites at the time. I can only assume that the site was indexed under the host site's name instead of the individual blog at the time. At any rate, I'd rather not create any more confusion on the internet than already exists, so I've renamed my little column. I debated about whether or not I should let the old pages stand as they are or not. I decided since they are so few I might as well go back and change all references to Irregular Thoughts to Letters from Little Rock. I know it doesn't make any difference to anybody but me, but I prefer a little consistency in my world so there it is. I suppose that Letters from Little Rock is a little bit more obvious and generic sort of title. It also has the advantage of being a little more descriptive of what I'm trying to do here. I certainly hope that as I blather on here week after week some of you at least will come to regard these pieces as you would regard a letter from an old friend. Maybe not of much moment, but welcome anyway as a record of life in other quarters. It is also a kind of a tip of the hat to E.B. White, the writer I regard as the precursor to the casual essayists that dominate most of our print media today. I seriously doubt that most of us are even capable anymore of writing a formal essay. I'm not even sure I could write an essay without using the first person singular anymore. Aside from the trauma of discovering my column's clever title had in fact been in use for years, not much has been going on around these parts lately. Oh, I know, ordinarily there's big doings and beings and happenings and stuff to report on around here, but this week not much happened. Aside from the big dog scare we had around about Tuesday (I think it was) nothing happened at all. Well, little dog scare really. Some neighbor of mine has a little beagle that got of its leash somehow. Cute little fellow, came right up to the fence to say hello to my two doggies. The entire time I was trying to restrain my two doggies from leaping the fence and/or plowing right through it to eat the beagle, he just kept wagging his tail and frolicking completely uninhibited by the threat of impending death. Amazing how oblivious some critters can be. I guess technically the only one that was scared was me. I don't like the idea of having to return a beagle carcass to a neighbor I barely know. I must say the rage with which my dogs responded to the little fellow was a surprise to me. Ordinarily they tolerate other dogs with great savoir fare. Aplomb even. They have always taken a hard line stand on squirrels. And cats. And possums. But other dogs have always elicited little other than a mild growl at the worst. I don't know what the little fellow did, but he's beyond the pale. I was going to take the little fellow back where he belongs but he was just too quick for me. Anyway it was time for me to go to work. Last I saw of him he was busy making friends with a lamppost.
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