Richard Lederer checking in. I taught English and media at St. Paul’s School for 27 years and wrote a weekly “Looking at Language” column for the Monitor from 1980 to 1997. I remember dumpster diving behind the old Monitor building on State Street so that I could retrieve and cut out copies of my column to distribute to family and friends.
Having the perfect face for radio, I was a frequent guest during the early days of NHPR. I also made a lot of friends in town. As the Irish blessing tells us, “There are good ships, and there are wood ships, the ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are friendships. May they always be.”
Two years ago, I had the great pleasure of delivering a Walker Lecture titled “Language and Laughter.” That performance drew not just a straight or a flush, but a full house.
Allwynne Fine, a trustee of the Walker Lectures, invited me to return to Concord this year to offer another performance, on Sept. 30. My immediate response was “Absolutely, affirmative, agreed, all in, all right, amen, aye aye, by all means, fo’ shizzle, okay, okey-dokey, righto, right on, roger, sure, totally, uh-huh, yea, yeah, yep, yes, you bet, yup, 10-4.” I was thrilled to reconnect with my many friends in Concord, where I lived and moved and had my being for 35 luminous years.
The Walker Lecture Series blossomed from an 1892 bequest of $30,000 in the will of Abigail B. Walker, widow of Timothy Walker. The trust stipulated a “free course of lectures upon subjects of history, literature, art or science, and free dramatic, musical, literary, historical and other cultural events to be given in Concord, the native city of Timothy Walker and lifelong residence of Abigail B. Walker.”
The first programs were presented in 1896. (I attended and remember them well!) Since then, more than 1,500 performances and lectures have graced the Walkers’ legacy. Over the years, notable performers have included Tommy Makem, Lowell Thomas, the Harvard Krocadiloes, and Tim Sample.
The title of my Sept. 30 performance is “Fascinating Facts About Our Presidents.” Who was our youngest American president? Who was our oldest? Who was our tallest, shortest, and fattest? Along the way, I’ll illuminate the feats, fates, families, foibles, and firsts of our chief executives.
My presidential program will be Zoomed on Sept. 30, exactly when it was scheduled as a live show. Doors will open virtually at 7 p.m., and I’ll begin my show at 7:30 p.m. This will be the first Zoomsday in the storied saga of Walker programs, and you can be part of history!
Admission is free and worth every penny. For a Zoom invitation, join the email list at walkerlecture.org.
You’ll not find any political partisanship in my performance, but you will find a generous sprinkling of humor. In my mission of teachership, I try to personify Learning Dressed Up to Have Fun.
You’ll also find passion. We, the world’s greatest democracy, whose Constitution is a model for other democracies around the world, are woefully ignorant of our history. Department of Education studies show that history and civics are our worst subjects. As part of my mission of teachership, I’ve created “Fascinating Facts About Our Presidents” to counter that trend. I believe the words of philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Historian Henry Adams, the grandson and great-grandson of presidents, wrote that the president “resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek.” The voyages that our American presidents have steered on the ship of state are some of the brightest adventures that any nation has experienced since the dawn of civilization.