A neighbor, let’s call her Donna because that is her name, is a real estate agent. When we first moved here, she had big eyes for the first house we bought and she showed it, illegally because she did not have the listing, to a potential buyer. My b.i.l., Don, who had been very helpful to the widow who was selling it, had been told by her that he could sell it and get the commission. Donna’s client made an offer and it was more than ours, so we came up with the difference and got the house. Basically, her end-run cost us money.

Don was furious with her – also he was close to Joey, her husband, and had helped him out a lot. And probably had been overbearing, because once you let Don help you, he thinks he owns you. This can make people resentful. I don’t know if irritation with Don was a factor in what they did, because they appear to be liars and cheaters as a general way of living. Don blew his stack and dropped them. He felt he had been sold out for a couple of thousand dollars.
Time passes. We sell the first house to Gary, and buy the one next door that we now live in.

Two houses to our left, in the cul de sac, lived Maria, Joey’s sister. She was very close to Don and my sis, Tula. I piggybacked on that friendship and often chatted with Maria when I saw her. Maria was a snowbird (she died recently). During her absences, she relied on Joey to take care of the house for her. The house is prime property with a spectacular bay view, a Hollywood-style pool, and a cazillion rooms and an indoor bathroom that you can enter from the pool deck.

Joey takes a vacation from Donna, moves in to Maria's house for the summer, uses it for sexual encounters with marginally discriminating females (Joey is the very definition of grunge) who think he owns it and drinks all of Maria’s liquor. Maria is so angry that she doesn’t give him the keys anymore.

Segue to the present, about 15 years later. Maria, quite ill, dies. I am very sorry about that because I liked her, even though we were not always on the same wave length. I ring Joey and Donna’s doorbell to extend my condolences and to get a phone number for one of Maria’s daughters so I could call her and extend my sympathy. They invite me in, we chat in their living room, all is pleasant. No mention is made of any of our history. For all I know, Donna might not even remember her sneaky end run on the house, and also forgotten that Tula was my sister.

Meanwhile, my semi avocation of writing political opinions grows and my letters/Op Eds are getting into the News-Press, the Fort Myers daily, with some frequency.
Letters also appear that criticize what I have written and these are from people I have never met and they are perfectly entitled to disagree. Usually their responses are without foundation, but the News-Press doesn’t care. They like dissent because it sells. They have, in the service of presenting all sides, printed some truly ignorant (and illiterate) letters. I have written a couple of responses but the News-Press is not in the business of carrying on a tit-for-tat business, so they haven’t been published. Suddenly, there is one from Donna, taking exception to my critique of the Koch brothers, claiming I did not uncover ALL the facts. Donna? Donna, the newly, self-anointed master researcher, claims to know, in detail (not, however providing specifics) how wonderful, altruistic and genuinely good guys the Koch brothers are? I decide to ignore her. Also, until my stuff caught her attention, she never wrote to the News-Press. Gee. Do you think she suddenly wanted some of my action?

Then I wrote a mini history of the women’s movement and referenced how many middle class women bought the American dream only to be abandoned in mid life when their husbands got tired of their domesticity and glommed on to the foxy secretary. One reader phoned to thank me. She said her husband of 24 years, a judge, left her to marry his law clerk. We had a great chat and exchanged numbers.

Suddenly there is Donna with her second letter. It’s quite long – I am just including the opening.

“Independent Politics” is the title the News-Press gave it.

“What is the story with the love fest that The News-Press has with Harriet Stanton-Leaffer? If she is not in the Views section on Sunday, she appears in the Cape Coral section of letters or both in the same day. In some of her letters, she submits facts and websites. I wrote in about her story on the Koch brothers. She told half the facts not all. I understand that you get many letters but it appears that The News-Press tends to print hers over others.
She has tried to educate or sway us whichever, of the reasoning why we should be staunch Democrats. Last week, one letter gave us a Bible study and then Sunday she told us about our “lost equality.”

She also accused me of political bias against all Republicans,

Then Donna goes on to say that her marriage does not at all reflect what I wrote, it is wunnerful, wunnerful, and she is an independent, a true collaboration of heart and soul and economic equality and her marriage was not about her husband taking care of her. Therefore because what I wrote was not her experience, then none of it was true. In any case, her idealized version of her marriage was so manicured that I gagged.

I wrote to my editor and told her some of this and they may not print her again because they are not in the business of furthering private feuds. I think her motivation is that she is envious of my exposure and wants in on that action.

Meanwhile, I wrote a response that I plan to mail to her snail style because I don’t have her E mail. She had accused me of just being against anyone who is a Republican and I have correspondence with H. R. Haldeman, when we published his book at Times Books and I worked there before transferring over to the News Service/Syndicate (with a huge raise). In his note (he was in Lompoc at the time) he told me that I was “the unsung” heroine of his book. I also spent an afternoon in Haldeman’s hotel room along with his co-author and my boss at Times Books. We drank bottled water and talked about promotion. He was also about to turn himself in to serve his time at Lompoc. Do you think I should send her a copy?

I also worked on the syndication of Henry Kissinger’s book and delivered the edited mss. to his apartment, but the doorman took it and wouldn't even announce me. My best anecdote about Kissinger is that Jill St. John said of him, when they were dating, that his idea of romance was to slow the car down to 15 mph when he dropped her off, so I can't take the above rejection personally.

Should I continue to ignore Donna, or should I set her straight, including copies of the Haldeman correspondence (which should blow her mind)?

Or should ignore her yet again? Would value feedback.

xx, Teal