Steve Christilaw: Reader feedback almost always welcome

There’s an odd phenomenon that comes with writing for a daily newspaper.

It’s called silence.

When you look at your publication’s circulation, you know your work is being delivered to a lot of eyes. Of course it also means your work is going to be used to wrap a lot of fish, but that’s beside the point.

It’s like a stand-up comedian throwing out their best joke and being met with, well, nothing. No reaction. Nada.

You learn to live with that. You trust yourself, put a lot of faith in your editors and remind yourself that you are part of a sacred, public trust.

Still, it’s good to hear from readers. Feedback is our friend.

Way back when, in the days when snail mail was the only mail there was, you’d occasionally get a card or letter from a reader commenting on a story.

That was a more civilized time. Cards and letters were an actual, you know, thing.

If all you had was a snarky comment or an insult, you rarely felt strongly enough about it to invest in a stamp. I have always appreciated readers who felt strongly enough, pro or con, to take pen to paper, lick a stamp and communicate.

Too often it feels like that old joke about a mother complaining that she hadn’t eaten a bite in three days. “Why haven’t you eaten in three days?” her son asks. “Heaven forbid I had my mouth full in case you called,” she said.

A retired school teacher once wrote to correct some bad grammar that appeared in one of my stories. I claim innocence and place the blame on a copy editor from way back in the day, but somehow there was a mix-up in the use of the word “lay” instead of “lie.”

She was very polite in pointing it out and even suggested a mnemonic device for future reference. “Hens lay,” she wrote. “People lie.”

I sent back a thank-you note that read: “They certainly do.”

Over the years there have been thank-you notes from parents and kind words from neighbors. I’ve heard from my junior high baseball coach and have even chatted with one of my favorite long-ago teachers, my speech and debate coach at Ephrata High School.

Notes like that can make your whole day.

I once received an incredible note from a woman I had written about decades before. She told me how much a few kind words from me had meant to her father. And she told me that, as a Chicago-area lawyer, she was teaching her young daughter to play the game the exact same way I had described her own play.

That note is in my personal hall of fame.

One of the most touching emails I have ever received was in regard to my recent story about Olympic Silver medalist Rebecca Twigg and her battle with homelessness. A woman with a history of battling homelessness emailed me, thanking me for pointing out not everyone living on the streets or in shelters is doing so because of drug abuse or alcoholism.

A note like that means more than I can ever explain.

The advent of the internet has been both good and ill. I have used it to connect with colleagues I haven’t seen in ages. One is now a highly respected journalism professor in Georgia. Another went on to become the official White House photographer for George W. Bush.

With that comes the ability to dash off that snarky comment and send it along without so much as a second thought.

You take the good with the bad.

One of my favorite negative emails came a few years ago. The writer questioned my intelligence, questioned my parentage and suggested I had a condominium underneath a slimy rock someplace. But at least the writer had the decency to sign the missive. It read: “Love, Mom.”

My favorite notes come from kids I have written about.

One confided that struggles with injury had sapped her self-esteem. My story about her bravery had come at just the right time and had rallied her self-confidence.

Another favorite came just last week.

Emily Heskett told me up-front that she is a distance runner on the Central Valley girls track team – a team that had finished its eighth straight undefeated Greater Spokane League season.

That part of the note prompted the story you will also find in this section.

How she closed her note is what tickled me.

“I have enjoyed reading your articles on GSL sports in the Thursday Valley Voice,” she wrote, adding, “Yes, I’m a high school student who still reads the newspaper.”

Kids like Emily make what we do on these pages fun, and shining a light on what kids like her and her teammates are doing is a task I truly love doing.