Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Laugh and readers laugh with him -- sometimes

SCOTT DICKENSHEETS' column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach him at 259-4082 or [email protected].

BEFORE WE check the e-mailbag for the latest heat-seeking missives, let's begin with a snatch of voice mail. "You're just about my favorite writer," a very nice lady named Virginia told my telephone, "next to Miss Manners." Take that, Dear Abby! "Today's column," Virginia continued, "made me laugh at least seven times." Take that, Maureen Dowd! Seven laughs in a single column -- it's a record that may never fall.

In that very same column (about apologies), I noted my long-distance genetic tie to second president John Adams. "I also am a distant cousin of John Adams," wrote someone named Ken. "That would make us really distant cousins. Can you loan me some money?" Yep, we're related! Cousin Ken agreed with me that it's silly for public figures to apologize for historical misdeeds -- being family, we stick together -- but added: "I think that the descendants of the victims demanding these apologies is even more ridiculous." Perhaps, but some ancient grievances still cry out for a big I'm Sorry, particularly the dirt bike my parents never got me.

My recent sermon (a three-laugher, tops) on the Bellagio gallery set an arts lover named Adele to thinking. "I have visited art museums in many states and countries and cannot recall ever paying a fee of $10," she writes. That includes the Getty Museum, to which Wynn compares his own collection. "What Wynn forgot to mention was that the Getty Museum is free," she notes. Consider it mentioned now, Adele.

There were 4.27 laughs in the column I wrote about a recent gun show, but, judging from his armor-piercing e-mail, a correspondent named Mike wasn't amused. "It certainly is scary that a major newspaper gives someone such as you the power and space of a column," he writes. Well, these are strange and unregulated times. Mike accused me of smearing gun owners as bloodthirsty yahoos, an impression I bolstered by adopting the guise of Liberal Boy for that column.

I replied with my usual fancy wordplay and glib hostility; his response to that seemed as if he'd typed it with his middle fingers. I was now a "liberal a--hole" who "distort(s) the truth in your daily mission to let everyone know they are not as perfect as the newspaper columnists."

So I hit him with my hole card: Although I am indeed Liberal Boy, I am also something of a gun enthusiast. So there! No by-the-numbers liberal weenie I! Then I braced for incoming fire.

As it turns out, Mike isn't so by-the-numbers himself. His next e-mail contained an unexpected cease-fire notice. "I'm not a bad guy and I'm sure you're not either," he wrote. He explained that my column had rubbed him the wrong way, but he hadn't meant to come on as hardnosed as he did. I immediately felt sheepish; in the course of trying to prove he'd misjudged me, I'd misjudged him. Unlike a stereotypical gun nut, he was willing to seek out sensible middle ground. It takes a big guy to wave the white flag, and I'm relieved he's such a big guy because, as it turns out, he really is a big guy -- a 270-pound bodybuilder. I'm a 200-plus pound ... er, what's the opposite of bodybuilder? He could flex my head clean off.

Mostly, though, I find it heartening that two people who got off so thoroughly on the wrong foot can nonetheless mend fences -- he even offered me workout tips. I'm sure Miss Manners would approve.

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