Jack Smith

Re “Jack Smith, Urbane and Wry Times Columnist, Dies,” Jan. 10:

Jack Smith was a gentle soul who wrote about life in an ever-changing city we know as Los Angeles. His humor and insightful look at our giant, little city was often the highlight of The Times. His philosophy about our town and our lives made me think of the Transcendentalist writers Emerson and Thoreau. Jack Smith was our transcendentalist. I will miss him.

ESTHER J. BENJAMINS-GASS

Los Angeles

* The Life & Style section on Mondays will be strangely vacant without Smith’s column. Thank you to a dear human being who shared so much with us. I miss him already.

RENATE GLINSKAS

Santa Ana

* Thank you, Jack Smith, for many years of wonderful and enjoyable reading. As somebody who grew up in Bakersfield, often the undeserving butt of many jokes, I especially appreciated Smith’s positive spin on columns about that city.

He will be truly missed.

JANIS CADWALLADER

San Diego

* With Smith’s death, I’ve lost a friend I never met.

JOHN DIBELKA

San Diego

* A short 30 years ago I began a lifelong pleasure of reading Smith’s columns. Jack had a unique and wonderful way of finding humor in everyday life. He was the epitome of common sense and wry, gentle political incorrectness. He only allowed himself two mistakes a year in his column. And when he made more, the written thrusting and parrying between Jack and his readers produced priceless prose.

He will be sorely missed.

MIKE KILGORE