I­ began writing these little columns in 2003. I’m pretty sure someone out there is reading them, because responses keep flooding in.

In fact, just the other day one flooded in, and I’ll discuss it in a minute. The first one that ever flooded in was a letter I got in the U. S. mail in 2004 from a person in Fayetteville. I think this person was close to my age, because the writing was all trembly, not unlike my own.

I quote the letter in its entirety: “Dear Mr. Davis — I hope you are not considering a career as a writer, because your columns are so-o-o boring. Thank you.”

Undaunted by this discouraging reaction to my efforts, I’ve persisted all these years in writing about such weighty matters as cleaning out your sock drawer, taking naps and standing in line for things. Once in a while I write about something serious, but I try to avoid that.

I used to wonder if anyone was paying attention. Now I know.

Every so often I will get a response that has an effect far beyond what the responder intended. I wrote a column in 2005 about the big bands, and it caught the attention of Marilyn Hamm, the wife of Tommy Hamm. Tommy had a long career as a singer with a quartet called The Mello-Larks. They appeared with big bands, in nightclubs, on radio and on television. He wrote to me, and so began a friendship that has deepened over the years.

Another column that drew an unexpected amount of return fire was one I wrote not long ago on my lifelong favorite baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. You must understand that the 2009 Pirates set a record for futility unmatched in the annals of Major League Baseball. It has been 17 years since the team has had a winning record. I don’t mean winning a pennant — I mean winning more games than they lose.

That is a horrible record, and I hate even mentioning it. The Pirates get passable players, sometimes very good ones, but they fritter them away somehow and always stagger down to the depths of the standings like a drunk falling downstairs. They wallow there in their misery until, mercifully, the season ends. And having the successful football Steelers in the same town doesn’t help matters any.

I thought that my friend Harry Hillgrove and I were the only local Pirate fans brave enough to come right out in the open and admit our devotion to the pathetic Pittsburgh baseball team. Imagine my surprise when a small cadre of local hard-core Pirate worshipers surfaced. It was as if all the sufferers from some unmentionable affliction decided to go public, baring their awful secret for the whole world to see, like the zombies advancing toward the camera in “Night of the Living Dead.”

I received a nostalgic letter from Paul Thomas, who was an usher at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh when the Pirates won the seventh game of the 1960 World Series, a game which Marilyn and I attended. I also heard from local Pirate fans Bob Grainger, Bob Stanik and Jeff Soltis.

Sam Walker wrote me. His wife, Elizabeth, is the granddaughter of the late Rosey Rowswell, the old Pirate radio broadcaster whom I revered beyond words. I intend to follow up with Sam. He has some Pirate memorabilia that I can’t wait to see, and he knows some other local Pirate fans.

And I also wrote a column about Penn State football, which drew a response from Ray Barber, a fellow alumnus, whom I now meet at Mac’s every Sunday morning during football season to discuss the previous day’s game.

So there are readers out there after all. I thought so.

Excuse me, but I have to go now. The mail is here. If a letter floods in, I must get ready to answer it.

Contact Jim Davis at jdavis110@nc.rr.com.