Bridge or Boggle: readers make their views known
One of the cardinal rules of being a newspaper editor is you don't mess with the comics or puzzles pages.
But I seemed to be on a little bit of a roll. I removed "Doonesbury" Monday-Saturday. A few complaints, but they seemed mollified with my reasoning: the strip had been in repeat for years. Same scenario when I axed "For Better or For Worse."
But, alas, my winning streak is over. Earlier this week, we removed the Daily Bridge column and subbed in the word game Boggle. I can remember my parents decades ago playing at a card table with another couple, but does anyone really still play bridge? My thinking was an interactive puzzle would be more popular than a column that gives advice on how to play a game. Wrong. Or at least, mostly wrong.
The messages started coming into my inbox early Monday morning.
"My wife and I are avid readers of the daily bridge article. We go over each one in the morning. It is a part of breakfast."
"We are subscribing to The Day newspaper for over 25 years. Everyday my whole family looks forward to the BRIDGE game."
"I miss it, I need it, I want it!!!"
Some made it clear how important the game was to their continued reading of the paper.
"You just ruined my morning. I enjoy and play bridge. I enjoyed reading it in The Day. I may have to cancel my subscription."
"The Day goes away if the bridge column disappears."
Some of the bridge enthusiasts weren’t all that kind to Boggle fans.
"BOGGLE IS FOR SIMPLETONS. PLEASE BRING BACK THE BRIDGE COLUMN. IT HAS CLASS!!!"
"I can tolerate replacing the daily chess problem with '7 Little Words,' but if you replace the bridge column with the daily 4x4 Boggle the puzzle page will be dumbed-down too much. Daily Bridge Club is a great reason to look forward to opening The Day each morning. My anticipation would be greatly diminished without it, so consider this a solid vote for reinstating the Daily Bridge Club."
Boggle did not go without its support, however.
"I much prefer Boggle. The Bridge Club is directed to a much smaller audience. Thank you for considering a change."
"I love Boggle, I always look forward to the Sunday edition of The Day so I can do the Boggle puzzle. I would love to see it more often."
"Prefer boggle. Never even look at bridge."
Just to be clear: the bridge column was not eliminated. A note on the puzzle page explained this was a one-week experiment and asked readers to voice their preference for bridge or Boggle.
As it turned out, if this were a presidential election, it would've been Reagan-Mondale, so the bridge column will return next week. If possible, we'd like to add Boggle down the line. (And for fans of 7 Little Words, I heard you loud and clear and you have nothing to fear.)
With that settled, now I'm left to wonder if anyone really thinks "Blondie" or "Hagar the Horrible" are funny.
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