I’ve been a reading junkie for as long as I can remember. Although I don’t read nearly as much fiction as I ought to or as much as I used to, I love reading newspapers, magazines, as well as books and articles on American history, music and science.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve written letters to famous people who piqued my interest. This started when I was about seven and I wrote to Johnny Carson about a joke that he told on The Tonight Show. A few weeks later, a manila envelope arrived in our mailbox with a Burbank, California return address. Inside was a letter to me from Johnny Carson and an autographed photo.

Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was an inventor, author, architect, futurist and visionary. He coined the terms “synergy” and “spaceship earth,” developed the geodesic dome and was the second president of Mensa. He taught at Black Mountain College in western North Carolina in 1948 and 1949.

Early in 1973, I read a newspaper article about President Nixon’s second inauguration. In the article, there was a mention about special matchbooks that had been created for the inaugural balls so guests could light their cigars and cigarettes and then take them home as souvenirs. In our politically correct world of today, imagine the howls of protests that would’ve come from the American Cancer Society, parents’ groups, and other do-gooders if occasional smoker President Obama had printed up similar matchbooks.

Anyway, I wrote to the Detroit Free Press, inquiring about the matchbooks because my brother, Greg, collected matchboxes and matchbooks from various hotels, restaurants and gas stations at the time. The Free Press forwarded my letter to the White House and a few weeks later I received a letter with the presidential seal on it and two different commemorative matchbooks from the Nixon inauguration. Can you imagine the White House today sending a twelve-year-old kid two packs of matches? “Here ya go, kid. These are just for cigarettes. No arson, okay?”

Because of this gesture, and because of some great historic presidential quotes such as “I am not a crook,” I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Richard Nixon, despite his obvious flaws.

The list of other famous people I’ve written to and received answers from (not everyone wrote back) includes scientist and philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller, cartoonist Gahan Wilson, music producer Don Was, and guitarist Robert Fripp. Okay, so maybe they’re not as famous as Regis Philbin. But they all did something that interested me and took the time to answer my questions about it.

In this day and age of emails, instant messaging and twittering (I’m still not quite sure what that is), I sincerely hope the written letter is not on its deathbed. I still receive praise and criticism of my Sweet Tea with Lemon column in the form of written letters, but I find the writers of such letters to be among my older readers. The younger ones are content to leave phone messages or write emails telling me what a genius or idiot they think me to be.

I would encourage parents and teachers to instruct their young charges to get out quill, ink and paper and to write a letter to a famous person that they find interesting. As you can probably tell by my success with such letters, the less famous this famous person is, the greater chance of receiving a personal reply and not just a form letter from their fan club.

I was thinking a lot about writing these past few weeks for a number of reasons. One reason is that two of my favorite newspaper columnists have written their last articles for publications that have carried them for years. Editorial writer and syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick ceased writing his column “The Writer’s Art” because of health reasons in January and The Winston-Salem Journal’s music editor Ed Bumgardner left the publication in a cost-cutting move by that newspaper.

James Kilpatrick was that rare political mind who saw true conservatism as a pragmatic course for our country, one that had no allegiance to political party or personality. His later writings were full of disdain for politicians who talked the conservative talk, but acted as power-hungry demagogues intent on increasing government’s size and power.

Of course, my favorite Kilpatrick writings came from his weekly column, and book of the same name, The Writer’s Art. My dog-eared copy of The Writer’s Art has about a dozen Post-Its sticking out of it and is never farther than an outstretched arm from my keyboard. Did you know that “jealousy” and “envy” are not interchangeable words? You are envious of something somebody else has, and jealous of something that you already have (for example, a jealous husband). Did you know you use “blond” without the e on the end when the subject is male and “blonde” when the subject is female? “Further” and “farther” are also words that people tend to think are interchangeable but aren’t. You use “farther” for any comparison that can be measured with a ruler, yardstick or measuring tape, and “further” for more abstract notions such as careers, relationships and the like.

These are but a small sampling of the many things I have learned from Kilpatrick and The Writer’s Art. My Saturday morning ritual of drinking coffee while reading The Writer’s Art in the Charlotte Observer is a weekend starter I’ve had for years and won’t be easily replaced.

Ed Bumgardner has alternately entertained me and infuriated me for years. As the music editor for The Winston-Salem Journal, he was extremely opinionated and prone to exaggeration when it came to praising the music he liked and criticizing, or more often ignoring, styles and bands he didn’t care for. A diehard classic rock fan, he managed to compare any new band that came onto the scene with a similar warhorse from the 1960s and 1970s. He once compiled a list of the best live albums in history, and coincidentally, none of them were less than 25 years old at the time his story was published.

Still, Bumgardner was passionate about music and musicians and that passion was conveyed in his familiar, distinctively non-pompous style of writing. For the past 22 years, he has done all that he could to support the music scene of North Carolina in general and of the Triad in particular by interviewing musicians, reviewing albums and promoting live shows. His departure is a real loss for musicians and music lovers in our area and we in the newspaper community of western North Carolina wish him well.