Dear Editor ...

Ever since that day in 1940 when William D. Grote of Mineola wrote to say he was supporting Wendell Willke for president over Franklin D. Roosevelt -- the first letter to the editor published by Newsday -- the paper has received on the order of half a million pieces of correspondence from readers commenting, in varying tones of indignation, on everything from foreign wars to barking dogs to Why can't the trains run on time? Long called "The County Irritant," the Newsday letters column has been the place readers have come to vent, to berate, to tweak, to opine. From the struggle of returning G.I.s to road rage on the LIE, here's a sampling of some of the things that have been irritating Long Islanders the past six decades.