James Thurber

When Ohio State University decided to give its cleverest native son James Thurber a posthumous, honorary doctorate degree, the Thurber House and Museum decided that it would be apropos to ask journalists to help celebrate. An invitation was extended to the shoestring staff of the alternative weekly that I worked for, and somehow, I was selected (probably by default) to write and deliver a toast.

It was the mid-1990s — the era of the Contract with America.  The National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting were under constant threat of elimination as the subjects of highly misleading, inflammatory campaigns about how and where they spent their money. Artists who tackled difficult themes were singled out, their work discussed with little context and lots of saber-rattling. The political landscape of the time was polarized and witch-hunt prone,  the era of Joe McCarthy echoing all around us.

I found out that Thurber had previously turned down an offer for an honorary degree from OSU because he felt the institution had been complicit in McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusades. So I reread his children’s book “The Wonderful O”  and wrote this toast about his passion for intellectual freedom. I worried that I might offend someone by bringing up that bit of ugliness from the past in a public forum, until it dawned on me that worrying about offending people probably wasn’t very high on Thurber’s list of concerns.

I was nervous, but the toast seemed to be well-received by the people there. I received kind words from the organizers, former U.S House representative Bob Shamansky and a woman who worked for the local public radio station. She asked me to lunch.

I’ve learned that speaking truth to power has effects that you could never anticipate. My lunch date turned quickly into a solid friendship, which turned into family when I introduced her to my younger brother and they decided to marry. The yield of that day now includes three beautful children, a Northern Ohio farm and creamery and (so far as I can tell) no unicorns.