I’ve been at this journalism business for 25 years, have written literally thousands of stories and gotten phone calls, cards, letters and other comments from dozens of readers — some of them complimentary, some of them not, but honestly, I appreciate all of them.

Because after all these years and all those words, I’ve never lost the feeling of amazement that anyone out there actually cares about what I’m doing or what I have to say.

It’s always very humbling to every now and then learn first-hand that the work actually matters.

Or even if doesn’t really matter in an important sort of way, that it matters enough for people to want to read the prose I put together.

So thus, every time I learn of a new reader, I’m always pleasantly surprised.

For example, last week I got a voicemail message from Michelle, the receptionist at my dentist’s office.

“Hi Steve,” it began cheerfully (Michelle is unfailingly cheerful).

“It’s time to have your teeth cleaned, so we were wanting to schedule an appointment for that. And we also understand you have a tooth that’s giving you trouble and that you wanted to talk about the possibility of orthodontia.”

With that, I LOL’d (laughed out loud, to you non-texters) and simply had to tell someone.

“Hey Karen,” I said to city editor Karen Petersen. “My dentist’s office apparently reads my blog. They just left me a message and want to talk to be about ‘the tooth that bothers me,’” which I had written about recently.

Karen flashed her winning, perfect-toothed smile and then said, “”Well, that’s pretty cool.”

Yes, in fact, it is pretty cool.

So again, let me say to all of you, thanks for reading.