Feedback brings with it finer moments.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

The e-mail came Thursday from a regular reader of The Register-Guard. "Just learned that one son voted for Kerry, one for Dubya and one for Nader," the Eugene woman wrote. "And I carried them all in the same womb."

Having just passed the five-year anniversary of writing this column, this microcosm of political diversity reminds me of one of the great parts of this job: interacting with readers who broaden my horizons by sharing their stories.

You write about that rare Yachats weekend when a storm grinds the surf into slow-motion whip cream and are greeted not only by other people's e-mailed experiences with the same phenomenon, but color photos.

You write about famous people who've visited Eugene and suddenly you're talking to a man whose brother had dinner in Eugene with Jesse Owens back in 1936.

You write about how the Ducks are going to beat the Sooners because, well, we're a superior state, Oklahoma's most impressive invention being the shopping cart, and suddenly you're being blitzed by 350-pound e-mails and getting crack-back phone calls.

Not all feedback is fun. Some readers cannot be reasoned with. They are not interested in civil discourse. Or trying to understand satire. Or leaving names. They are interested in letting you know that you're a pathetic loser.

I don't need that; I can get that from friends and family.

But there's no better feeling than quickly writing a mean-spirited rebuttal, especially since you can hide in the cyber vacuum. Ah, but just as you get ready to hit "Send," you resist. And what follows is perhaps the most satisfying part of interaction with readers: finding common ground with people whom you once wanted to flame.

It is a lesson I've learned numerous times in the past five years: If you put down your heavy-artillery words and dare to just get to know someone, amazing things happen.

Once, a man chastised me for writing about something trivial - Autzen Stadium's noise level, I believe - at a time when "ordinary working people's lives are being made increasingly difficult, when our country's traditional civil liberties are being destroyed, when megacorporations are growing ever more crazed ... '

Since then, the two of us have shared numerous good-spirited e-mails, found things we have in common - among them a love for Yachats - and even had dinner together. Why? Because both of us are willing to listen rather than speak, learn rather than scold, find our common values rather than cling to our differences.

It's amazing how human people can become face to face over hot chocolate.

I made an unfair remark about Kitty Piercy in a column a few months ago. Later, we got together at Allann Brothers - I owed her an apology - and talked, not so much as columnist and mayor-to-be, but as two human beings.

Wonderful stuff, this talking and listening. And perhaps never so important as now, with our country divided so sharply, one side unduly beating its chest, the other bringing in grief counselors.

After I poked fun at Oklahoma, one man said I owed everyone in his state an apology for my "false superiority and hatred of people you obviously know nothing about."

I wrote back and calmly explained satire - and how I'm an equal opportunity humorist, often making fun of my own state, my own city and my own self. I made a peace offering: two books I'd written. He wrote back and said he'd misjudged me - and offered me a book he's written.

I realize that it's far easier for two football fans 1,500 miles away to make peace than for two political adversaries who live next door to each other. I'm not envisioning The Womb Mates singing three-part harmony of the Youngblood's "Let's Get Together."

But I'm convinced systems, parties or idealogies won't make America better. People will. Not ordinary people, but those whose visions transcend the smugness of their always being right. Or left.