Sunday, October 25, 2015

Readers

Occasionally I am contacted by people who have stumbled upon this blog and enjoyed reading an entry. Sometimes they want to add a comment or ask a question.  Often they want to share a related memory.  It is fun to discover that I have new readers – real readers out there in the world, sometimes from far away.

On October 17, this email arrived: "Dear Sandy, I am the editor of the Essex Aggie Alumni Newsletter and I am asking if I can use your article about the Hathorne Post Office in an up coming newsletter. Thanks, Pete."  We exchanged emails and then had a long conversation by phone. I learned that Pete lives in Arizona, but was a student at Essex Aggie in the 1970's.  For the Alumni newsletter he was researching the old train station, seeking to learn why it was called Hathorne. An Internet search pulled up a mention in my blog.  Then he read other parts of my blog and wanted to tell me how much he enjoyed the Screech Owl story.

Coincidently, I had just selected that Halloween story to send to the editor of the Danvers Herald!

And today, a reader of the Facebook group "You know you grew up in Danvers Massachusetts when...."  posted a link to my Screech Owl story, which had been published this week in the Danvers Herald.   (I hadn't known whether it would run this week or next, so I appreciated learning of its publication.)

Other comments on that Facebook group this weekend have left me smiling. I've added replies to some questions asked (e.g., about the old Hathorne school). And I've thanked the readers there for their kind comments about my blog.  It is fun to learn of new readers.

Thank you, readers!