David CookSomeone wrote in, angry and ready to call it quits.
(Actually, lots have, but we'll just let one person take the place for many.)
"I would like to ask an apology from Mr. Cook," she wrote. "If there is no apology, I will cancel my subscription."
She gave me two weeks.
That was three weeks ago.
Ma'am, I've got lots of apologies. Boxes of them. So since you asked, and if you're still reading, I'm dumping them out today, like toys across a playroom floor.
I'm sorry for the days when this column is b-flat boring, with words that are clunky or harsh, like someone putting gravel on your cereal or Limp Bizkit in your headphones.
I'm sorry for the times when I forget that kindness is more important than winning the argument, and for sentences that slip toward self-righteousness, as if trying to hide my own darkness by projecting it onto others.
For sleepwalking through some issues, and ignoring the things and people that should never be ignored.
For 800 words, when 600 would do.
For schticks, when nobody's laughing.
For believing that old lie that conflict sells, when most of us love our neighbor, help the old lady across the street, and upon finding a fat wallet on the sidewalk, would give it back, every penny.
For hitting too hard.
For going too soft.
I apologize for the days when this column yawns. Like a maiden in a lighthouse, I stand staring at the horizon, squinting through the fog for a good column idea to float up. Some days, I only write barnacles and kelp.
For being foolheaded enough to think this column matters more than it does.
(The rumors of its importance have been greatly exaggerated.)
For being foolheaded enough to forget the power of this column, which can bruise like a barroom punch if not delivered just the right way.
I'm sorry for neglecting the human heart, for the things -- in sickness and in health -- that we all go through together. The wolf scratches at everybody's back door; we all come undone, one way or another. A columnist should remember the butcher, the baker and Volkswagen-maker: we're all in this together.
"The newspaper must have something to say to each one of them," the Texas newspaperman John Sorrells wrote long ago. "The newspaper must serve each one of them."
Serve?
Serve.
Ma'am, the one thing I'm not apologizing for is my opinion, the way I see the world. It may not be right, but it's mine, and I'm keeping it. Plus, I was hired to write it, and would rather hang up my hat than give you a false apology just because you're asking for one.
But I never want to serve my opinion to you rudely, like a dish gone cold. My job is not to demean. Or belittle. Or me-Tarzan, you-reader bludgeon.
Sure, we're going to butt heads over things, some days like mountain goats, but here's to the nostalgic notion that we the people can disagree in graceful ways. That conflict can actually humanize. That columns, while they may drive like John Henry wedges, may also create common ground.
Like that old Motel 6 jingle: I'd like to leave the light on for you.
Why?
Let me lay this last card on the table.
It's because I love this job, and take it seriously, and think that well-written and opinionated sentences strung out like fireworks or fresh laundry across a page of newsprint are some of the prettiest things on earth.
I am always sorry for coming up short of that.
"I was offended," she wrote.
Ma'am, when this column reads poorly, no one is more offended than I am.
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.