Thank you.

There is a big difference between me theorizing about talking to young people and a young person saying I am doing a good job of it.

So much for being graceful. I will now go back to being the crabby old bastard you are used to.

You start with, “Mr. Whitaker, I hope you don’t mind the comments of a young man. ”

I just got through lecturing Sheri on not apologizing for having your say. We are the people of the United States of America. The whole point is that we have our say. One of my major objectives is to stop people like you and Sheri from being intimidated by age, “Big time qualifications” and all the other crap that is gagging our people today.

My dream is the day when we start looking these professors and “experts” in the eye and saying, “Who in the HELL do you think you are?”

Now to your specific point.

In my many years I have seen several kinds of old man I do not want to be become.

1) You specified one great danger that even I could still fall into: the crabby old bitcher.

You know the drill:

“Well, I tried and tried to tell them but they wouldn’t listen and now all is lost.” Everybody gets into that mood from time to time, but with an old man, it can become incurable.

The fact is, that if I get that way, I am giving up on the world you and your children and your grandchildren are STILL going to have to live in. Not to mince words, it means that I have BETRAYED you.

Don’t let me.

2) I discussed another type of old man I do not want to become in the article “Maturity is a Virtue.” That is the pathetic old man who keeps trying to prove to everybody that he is still a young guy, one of the boys.

Young people already have young pals. So a white-haired old man trying to be one of the guys is not just pathetic, he is useless.

3) A third type of old man I don’t want to become is the exact opposite of 2). He leans back and talks endlessly about What Young People Need to Know while said young people try to stay awake out of respect and the possibility that the old goat will finally die and leave them something in his will.

One thing every professional writer or speaker must learn up front is to read his audience. When I speak I watch my listener(s) to the point that some of them get uncomfortable. I know the exact moment when their mind wanders.

But in this blog, I cannot see your face. I can only read you if you write to me. And you know very well that I read every comment several times and reply to most of them. Some of the best comments for ME are the ones I do NOT answer directly, because they tell ME something I need to know but the general audience may not be directly interested in.

And let me repeat one of my mantras: the point of the world is your OPINION. Americans must once again learn that art is not art’s sake and politics is not for politicians sakes. An art critic’s opinion or an artist’s opinion doesn’t mean a damned thing if what he produces doesn’t appeal to YOU. If it’s good, it will get an audience.

If a piece of “art” can’t find ANY audience in a population of three hundred million people because it expresses the hidden obsession of the “artist” and the “critic” with his mother’s breasts, it should be dropped in the garbage bin that has “Embarrassing Twaddle” written on it.

This is even more true of politics. It’s your country and everybody owes YOU an explanation.

By the same token, an old man’s advice is not for the old guy’s sake.

Back to the third type of old man you must keep me from becoming. It is easy for someone who is retired and likes to talk — like me — to wander off into dribbling out whatever he feels like saying. The only group of people who can protect me from doing this is my readers.

I do a lot of work here and I pay for the blog (it costs very little). Most important, I went through a lot to get the background that can be useful to you. So you owe ME some things in return.

One of the things you owe me is to push the blog and get me more readers and to spread my ideas.

But the other thing you owe me is to keep Bob’s Blog WORTH reading.

That requires both nice comments and criticism without apology.

I like the flowers. I NEED the flowers. As I said at the outset, for a young man to tell me I am useful to him is better than my telling that to myself.

If I am doing something right, tell me so. I do not get tired of encouragement. This is a lonely business and when I see that Comments (0) I am a bit disappointed.

But every flower garden needs some good stinky manure, too.

You would think that all the BS I throw around here would be enough for any garden, but flowers, like humans, need a varied diet.

Don’t apologize for disagreeing with me. It may surprise you to learn that in over half a century I have spent in politics a lot of people have disagreed with me and I have survived it nicely. Even hate mail gives me a boost compared to silence, though I don’t reprint most of it here.

Writing is a two-way street or it is a dead end.

Thanks again and keep it up.

Without the apologies.