Bril­liant. Some gen­er­ous soul has start­ed tran­scrib­ing Ronald Smythe and H. West­folds’ “let­ters to the edi­tor” to a blog.

Between them, West­fold and Smythe have cor­nered the mar­ket on cur­mud­geon­ly grumpi­ness, mak­ing their out­put, nat­u­ral­ly, some of the best com­e­dy writ­ing to be found com­ing out of our fair city. Says Smythe…

What has hap­pened to the youth of today. It is a rare occa­sion indeed when I am shown polite­ness and respect by the younger age groups. Good man­ners have flown out the win­dow, along with dress sense and decen­cy.

I pre­sume today’s pub­lic schools are part­ly to blame, although par­ents are no doubt shirk­ing their respon­si­bil­i­ties also.

…and H. West­fold, chan­nel­ing, it would seem, Grand­pa Simp­son…

Your March 15 item about that love­ly 1963 Stude­bak­er and its man­u­fac­tur­er evoked mem­o­ries of my ado­les­cence in the late 1940s. You see, it was Stude­bak­er which pio­neered the “New Look” anal­o­gous to that of wom­en’s fash­ions just then. It was in late 1947 or ear­ly 1948 that just a few of the lat­est Stude­bak­er mod­el appeared on our Tarana­ki roads, one of those cars being owned by a farmer near my home­town, Ingle­wood. For a short while, their pro­file made heads turn — a car’s front and rear ends both looked like front ends as we’d known cars for many years!

…and so on.

Read more at the apt­ly named I am of the Opin­ion.

[Hat-tip to Alan for actu­al­ly un-earth­ing this.]