Apropos of yesterday’s post about higher ed communicators whose work I admire: During back-porch beers with a speechwriter last night, I remembered this post from 2009, upon the forced retirement of a veteran scribe. —DM
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The speechwriter’s “retirement” party last night was at the Billy Goat Tavern. The beers weren’t cutting the sadness, so I left after three.
I’ll just say this: It takes an awfully peculiar sort of person—funny and nutty and witty and wise, not too ambitious, not at all lazy, passionate here, dispassionate there, intellectual and well read but self-deprecating, just this much and this kind of ego—to actually enjoy the inherently absurd job of helping institutions communicate.
And when a person achieves and sustains that kind of profound mutation and makes it look natural—well, he ought to have his job as long as he wants it, if you ask me.
And even as he laughed at the satirically mocked-up, framed Vital Speeches cover his colleagues gave him, even as he recounted his layoff by reading aloud his personal version of FDR’s “Day of Infamy” speech, even as he reassured everyone he’d be plenty busy between his knee replacement surgery and his plans to write for the Huffington Post, the guy didn’t try to hide his sadness.
I admired that, and I didn’t try to hide mine, either.
No one did.
The Shafe remains my favorite boss of all time, and of course the most influential speechwriting mentor I’ve ever had. It was both an honor and a tragedy to be able to farewell him that night. Thanks for bringing back a cherished and bittersweet memory.