Who Says Small Town Life Has to Be Dull?

[IrishAyes]

11. Points well taken.

I never even alluded to Bully Nut before the last letter when I advised others to ignore him and not read his crap, and even then I didn't use his name directly; yes, in part to insult him even more. His latest piece shows quite well that he was the one pissed off, not me because I truly don't care what he says about me. Which makes him even more furious. Like any nut, he enjoys when people write back describing how he hurt them and trying to reason with him as if he were decent and sane.

But he's always been this way even absent any chain jerking. Anything he sees he tries to savage, I think especially when people obviously ARE ignoring him. Which I shall continue to do as always except for that one time I described when it was still w/o using his name. I honestly think I'm in far less danger than the editor is, because virtually EVERYONE is furious with him for printing the guy's hateful crap. They probably don't give a rat's ass when I'm his target but they really hate it when it's them or theirs. The newspaper office sits right there on the town square like a sitting duck. If one of the many maligned don't sue or do something rash, Bully Nut IS rather likely to. But he'll take the obvious easy target. I'm seldom out and about at all.

Of course I don't want to provoke an incident where anyone gets hurt, even Bully Nut. But I'm not the driving force behind the drama either. All I'd have to do is say anything the least bit favorable toward any progressive in the world, or speak ever so mildly in favor of our policies, and Bully Nut would follow up with one of his screeds. The straw that breaks the camel's back will most likely fall when the editor refuses to print anything at all for Bully Nut no matter how big the ad revenue. But then that's a monster the editor fed to full size in order to sell papers.

I take comfort in one thing; if Bully Nut ever does show up at the paper with a gun or blowtorch, he might find himself outmatched. The editor knows better than I could what he's dealing with. His personal office sits in the back, out of sight from the street, and there's a big bell that rings when anyone opens the front door to the lobby. He won't be surprised that way. Another problem he faces, though, is the fact that he's on the town council that meets every month. Bully Nut could easily find him there.

As for 'safe' subjects for me to write about, there are none of interest to me that Bully Nut won't wig out about. Maybe he'll wind up like the bus driver we had here for the first 7 years of my residence. Talk about off the rails - he'd threaten outright to kill people and nobody ever did a thing about it except me (when I was the focus of his attention). Of course my complaints fell on deaf ears because everybody was terrified of him. He finally croaked - choked on his own bile, I suspect.

That's the best I can hope for. But I can't let him or anyone like him silence all freedom of expression. That would make me party to the evil.