Mockingbird Hill Cottage

We are in for a rainy three days. I feel for everyone who was hoping for a sunny and warm Memorial Day weekend. The weather isn’t going to clear until Tuesday.

So, we’re going to lay low; read, make and listen to music, paint, and reflect.

An interesting thing has been happening. This has happened in the past, but not for a long time. Three separate letters have come in the mail, each of them from a different place, including Canada. They’re handwritten, polite, with a self-addressed stamped envelope inside, asking for Don’s autograph.

Now, Don has been acting on screen since he was twenty. He has a LOT of television credits, including Three’s Company, LA Law, Hill Street Blues, Cheers, Frazier, etc. When we lived in San Diego, and even in the early days out here, people would often stop us because they recognized Don from Three’s Company. And sure enough, all three letters mention that show, as well as others.

Don is good natured about that sort of thing and he will send off his autograph.

I, however, wonder how they got our address. I know you can get anyone’s address on the internet, but I must admit that it makes me uncomfortable. That’s the reason I use a post office box for anything to do with this blog. I assume someone found it and it’s published on some sort of autograph collector site – a group of fans, maybe, of Three’s Company. Each letter was written with respect and deference and was very polite. I have no issue with the letters themselves.

But nothing is private any more, is it? Having an unlisted phone number/address means exactly nothing. And of course, both Don and I have a presence on the Web through our professional work, Don’s music, my blog, and social media – some of it by personal choice, some not. So unless we erase all traces of ourselves (which is virtually impossible) from the internet, that’s the way it now is.

Just some thoughts this morning on the internet and the loss of privacy. The autograph requests are sweet and Don has no problem with them, as they are clearly sincere and well-intentioned.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.