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To a eulogy I wrote several years ago about my father, a reader answered, "You enter the Pearly Gates! Pllleeeaaasssseee. You're scum. You're worse than scum. Why do you write this? Do you want attention? Do you want people, especially women, to come to you and give you their condolences while you peek down their blouses? You're a pervert! I heard you're back downtown in a prostitute infested hotel. Ha! Ha! Ha! Your wife finally came to her senses."

This submission inspired another diatribe: "You're a piece of shit, Doc. Your wife deserves better. You don't deserve a class act. Everyone knows that you're seeing some chick at the county. The way you write about others, someone should write about you. If you are the alternative to corruption in Brownsville, I'll take corruption. You had something beautiful and you turned it into something ugly."

When my father died, I posted an article entitled Patriarch Passes. I wasn't the recipient of universal sympathy. From the dark reaches of the peanut gallery this missive was fired at me: "Why don't you honor your father by becoming the writer you should have been--one fighting for the weak, the poor, the oppressed and the needy? Instead, you have wasted your talents writing about nobodies going nowhere in a falling town. If there, I'd at least have raised the level of discourse by writing not for my drinking pals, but for my abused neighbors who, really, have never had a strong and feared voice in stumbling Brownsville. But, as I like to say, it's never to late to have a happy childhood. Go do your Daddy proud, drummer."

There was this mixed reaction: "Sorry for your loss. Had no idea you came from such a loving father. Thought you came from a broken home and that is why you write the way you do with lots of anger and hatred. You're definitely the black sheep of your family. Wow! Shame on you then. Your father would not be proud."

Another insulted voice added: "Your father was a man of honor? You are shameless as his son. You're a piece of shit who hides behind a computer and writes about others. I wish you the worst in life. You deserve it."

Comments stagger me, but like rights to the head, I shake them off and they steel me for similar shots in the future. Fans prize great boxers as much for taking a punch as for delivering one. The key in this business is to confront the big boys. Even if they whip your ass, the aficionados appreciate your bravado. If you intimidate a little guy and he kicks your butt, you're exposed as a paper tiger. You have to ignore the pigeons and go after the buzzards.

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