An anonymous person here in Hagerstown has responded to my letter to the editor that was recently published in the Herald-Mail newspaper. This anonymous person instead of actually writing a letter and signing it as I did, elected to respond to my letter by phoning it in.

Seriously, they just phoned it in.

The Hagerstown Herald-Mail has something they call “Mail Call”. People can call a telephone number and leave a message. They don’t have to identify themselves. All they have to do it state where they are from and leave a message. Newspaper staff then sorts through the messages and attempts to find ones worthy of publishing. Here it is:

“This is about Memorial Boulevard. Virginia Magruder, a retired teacher from North Hagerstown High School – many of us had her for English -came in to Council to carefully delineate the history of Memorial Boulevard, and she had researched it. I wouldn’t presume to say what she gave in the way of information that evening, because it obviously is not going to be believed by the writer of the letter about Memorial Boulevard, but to overcome his ignorance on the subject of Memorial Boulevard and what it was to memorialize, and what it means to many of us out here, as the only thing that genuinely honors veterans in this whole community, I would like to suggest that he go to the Washington County library and avail himself of the many materials that are there on the history of Washington County. He gets to believe whatever he wants to believe, but to suggest that Memorial Boulevard doesn’t have any connection with honoring veterans is ridiculous.” – Hagerstown

What’s funny about this comment is the anonymous person first brags that Mrs. Magruder was their high school English teacher. They then proceed to phone in one of the longest run on sentences I think I have ever read. I’m not a high school English teacher, but I think a sentence with five comas is simply too long. Throw a period or two in there somewhere. They don’t cost anything. They are free. Even on the telephone. Then again, maybe it sounded better over the phone.

If I had a chance to speak with this anonymous person from Hagerstown, I would tell them that I did research on the origin of Memorial Stadium. I would tell them that though some in Hagerstown wanted to erect an actual Memorial to World War One veterans on the street, they never quite got around to doing it.

It’s kind of like me losing 20 pounds. I often say that I’m going to do it, but I never quite get around to it. It would be like calling a road Elm Street and then never getting around to planting elm trees there. It’s the same with the city of Hagerstown. They just never quite got around to erecting the actual memorial.

Why would I want to go do research at the Washington County library? I can sit here at home drinking coffee and taking advantage of Internet sites such as Google and Ask Jeeves. I guess I could do the same thing at the Washington County library, but I would have to do it sitting next to some smelly homeless guy looking for porn.