PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

A couple of my friends the other day expressed concern about responding to an e-mail request for financial support because they didn’t want to end up being on a supporters’ lists and remain there.

I understand their position. But, for me, no problem.

Consider me an e-mail junkie.

If you receive a message and don’t want to deal with it or even read it, just junk it. All it takes is one key stroke.

Use of e-mail is one of the most reliable communication methods for me. At least by receiving messages, I can make the decision about whether I want to review the information or not.

I remember the first time I started using e-mail, which, today, strikes most of us a foregone conclusion.

It was when I was a private sector lobbyist and represented Providence Health & Services, one of Oregon’s major health care companies, with eight hospitals spread throughout the state, a major health insurer and a number of special programs, including one for disabled children and another for senior adults.

Before the advent of e-mail, I used to spend time accumulating paper and sending the information by snail mail to my main contact at Providence, then expect that person to send information on to others who needed to react in a complex organization. If speed was needed, which often is the case in the push and pull of legislation at the Capitol, I would resort to faxing.

Time-consuming! Tough to get a response, not to mention many responses in any type of usable order.

With e-mail, I was able to send information directly to multiple places at once at Providence, including with attachments. Early on, attachments sometimes didn’t translate between and among types of on-line systems. But before long, faxing by a separate machine was out the window.

If, for example, I needed comments on a piece of legislation from a variety of perspectives at Providence, I was able to ask for them via one-mail. Then the respondents could respond individually. Often, I was able to get responses in time to use the information in testimony I would provide to legislative committees on behalf of Providence.

Now, I know it can be cumbersome to deal with e-mail messages from so many sources that want financial contributions, so I have no difficulty with my friends’ hesitancy. For me, though, I’d rather have all the information and decide what to do with it than not to have it in the first place.

Just a personal reflection.

One more memory. When I began working in Congress in the office of Oregon U.S. Representative Les AuCoin, we were the first office on the Hill to use a Wang word processing system. Ahead of the curve I would say.

Imagine my glee when I learned that, in order to strike out a mistake in a letter, all I had to do was hit a key. Then, the words and the spelling would be right.

Isn’t technology great? Most of the time, I say. So, forgive me as I stop writing this post and get back to dealing with my e-mail traffic.