The first piece of hate mail I ever received arrived at The (Nashville) Tennessean offices 21 years ago next month. It’s pictured above.
I remember the experience vividly. The card came inside an envelope with no return address and a heart stamp that read LOVE. I’m not sure if I laughed or giggled or sighed, but I was definitely intimidated. Especially after another letter came …
… and another letter came …
I saved a ton of them because, at the time, I found them funny. I was wrapping up my internship at the paper, thinking I was God’s gift to writing, ignoring criticism, absorbing praise, not realizing that I absolutely, positively, 100-percent sucked.
Wait. I need to explain. The letters were in response to a column the newspaper (inexplicably) allowed me to write. I was a know-it-all New Yorker who probably found Tennesseans to be quaint and sort of ignorant. So I pitched a piece about the goofy ways southerns speak—and it was approved. Here’s the finished product …
Embarrassing. Pathetic. Arrogant. Awful. Those are four words, but surely 100 more would suffice to explain how dreadful that fucking column reads. It’s smug and condescending, and while I don’t endorse “Yankee Jew Boy” as a tag, well, I get the anger. Who was I to write something like that? What gave me the right?
Looking back, now at age 42, I’m somewhat ashamed, somewhat perplexed. But I’m also grateful that enough people smacked me around and showed me the thin line between journalism and junk.
Back then, I was pure junk.
