Yesterday afternoon, as I was sitting down to write today’s column, a favorite aunt of mine informed me that a close friend of hers has been reading (and supposedly enjoying) my weekly musings. The catch? He’s currently serving with our troops in Afghanistan.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that it’s crossed my mind from time to time just how many people actually take a few moments of their Wednesday, while perusing our hometown daily, to check out my (at times) completely random thoughts on life. Yet I certainly never expected to hear I have a “fan” approximately 7,500 miles away – on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, no less. And it got me to thinking.

Over the past 14 months, 9 days and oh, about one hour, ever since I first started here at The Evening Sun, I’ve noticed you can tell a lot about any particular writer by his or her tone, phrasing and, for lack of a better term, literary preferences. And in some cases – especially when it comes to a weekly column – their political, religious and personal beliefs. The only problem with that, as far as I’ve been able to discern, is the ever-increasing tendency for stereotyping which has become so commonplace today.