I love living in the Historic Triangle — where a fun Saturday night is a TV talking head historian busting jokes about Hubert Humphey! And the audience GETS the jokes!<\/p>\n
From time to time I still write for the Daily Press (the newspaper that hired me in 1992 and asked me to create Chester the Crab in 1995 and then gave me a great run of creating five years of daily educational comics). Last Saturday I went to Jamestown Settlement to report on a speech by Michael Beschloss, author and frequent contributor to NBC and PBS.<\/p>\n
He was just what history needs. He didn’t talk in droning philosophical frameworks. He kept involving the audience, asking for shows of hands about questions he asked. He spoke off-the-cuff, not from a dense speech. He told funny stories about people. Now, some were hard to believe — LBJ really owned a car that could travel in water and would scare visitors to his Texas ranch by driving at high speed towards a lake?!?! But some anecdotes I had heard before, and I trust Beschloss’ truthfulness. And I’m old enough that I remember Minnesota politician HHHumphrey. So me and the . . . ah, MATURE audience had a good time.<\/p>\n
In promising to keep his speech short and “not go all Humphrey on you tonight,” Beschloss told this crowd-pleaser: Hubert had droned on awhile to a crowd and then caught himself going long, so he asked the crowd what time it was.<\/p>\n
“Does anyone have a watch?” Hubert asked.<\/p>\n
A heckler replied, “How about a CALENDAR?!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I love living in the Historic Triangle — where a fun Saturday night is a TV talking head historian busting jokes about Hubert Humphey! And the audience GETS the jokes! From time to time I still write for the Daily … Continue reading