Take-a My Heart
Robinson, Peter
F xamine the Public Papers of the Presidents, the vol- umes published by the Government Printing 4 Office that contain all the utterances of our chief executives, and you'll see that during his...
...Then, returning inside, he said, "There's a problem, Casaroli...
...See what I mean...
...When Reagan told a joke, he wasn't trying to make an audience like him, but giving it a gift...
...Laughter is a profession of faith...
...One afternoon while I was still on the Bush speechwriting staff, for instance, I had a meeting with the vice president on a Thursday, the day he always had lunch with the president...
...He was reaching into that zone deep within himself that was somehow always filled with delight—just picture the sparkle in his eyes as he anticipated the ripple of laughter he knew a good punch line would elicit—to give his listeners a little delight of their own...
...Looking back on all the meetings with Reagan that I attended—including meetings for no purpose other than to take a group photograph of the speechwriting staff—I'm unable to recall a single instance in which the president failed to tell at least one joke...
...He often claimed the country was bigger than its problems...
...Ultimately, though, Reagan considered human history a comedy—not a trifle or an absurdity, but a solemn story that would end, finally, in happiness, because God was the author, and God was good, and that was the kind of story He'd write...
...Once I'd completed the draft, I did my best to put the problem out of my mind...
...The best that could be said of humor was that it represented a release from the real business of life...
...Marking up a speech I'd written soon after I'd joined his staff, for example, the president placed a note in the margin next to a passage about the importance of political participation: "Insert Farmer joke...
...The president delivered the dialogue in a wildly exaggerated brogue...
...As I worked, devoting much of the speech to the importance of charity—the Knights of Columbus raised tens of millions each year to support schools and hospitals—one problem kept bothering me...
...If a picture is worth a thousand words, so is a punch line as sweet as that...
...Dana replied...
...Proud of all he'd accomplished, the farmer invited the preacher out to take a look one Sunday after church...
...It has to do with a young fellow," the president said, "that arrived in New York Harbor from Ireland...
...Reagan spoke the opening few lines just as I'd written them...
...Sometimes he would use humor to establish a bond between himself and an audience, doing so with such deftness that even we speechwriters would find ourselves astonished...
...Not long after I heard the president tell the farmer joke, I heard him interrupt a speech about the failures of Communism to ad-lib another...
...Many of those in the audience would be Irish Catholics...
...What was he doing...
...Humor, if I may put itthis way, wasn't serious...
...The audience howled with laughter, then broke into applause...
...What's the farmer joke...
...The crowd cheered...
...if you laugh or applaud...
...When she placed her order, she was told it wouldn't be filled for ten years...
...No problem, Your-a Holiness," Cardinal Casaroli, the Vatican secretary of state, who was known to both the president and the vice president, said...
...Ah: [the young fellow] says, 'the light turns green:" "Well, the light turned orange for just a few seconds, as it does, and then turned green, and [the young fellow] started out across the street...
...With one joke, the president had established his own Irishness, acknowledged that whereas his audience was Catholic, he himself was Protestant, and then made light of this gap between them in a way that enabled him and the audience to share a moment of pure delight...
...None of it would have made the president's point as vividly...
...And that corn...
...Take-a my heart...
...It made them feel better...
...How could I bridge that gap...
...The cardinal lifted a pillow from a chair and began to plump it...
...Even if you'd never known that his father was an alcoholic, you'd have sensed that Reagan himself had suffered when you saw the empathy he conveyed to the bereaved at memorial services, such as the service for the marines killed in Lebanon or that for the servicemen who died in Grenada...
...Humor, he saw, provided a kind of universal solvent, capable of washing cares away, and he always took the time to make people feel better...
...The pope released the feather...
...Pfft...
...The Irishmen in the audience wouldn't hold Reagan's faith against him, exactly—polls showed that the president enjoyed the support of a majority of Irish Catholics—but it would place a small, unspoken gap between the audience and the president all the same...
...I'm-a gonna tell you what we're-a gonna do...
...Preacher," the farmer said, "you should have seen this creek bottom when the Lord was taking care of it by Himself...
...He employed humor in what may be the most serious endeavor to which a chief executive can address himself, winning and sustaining the support of the American people...
...You have to imagine the president telling the story," Bush said...
...Peter's Square, all of them expressing their eagerness to serve as heart donors by shouting up at the papal balcony, "Papa...
...And a short time later, he started across one of those busy New York streets against the light...
...Pfft...
...If you'd wanted proof, you'd only have had to conduct a survey of the White House staff, asking people to relate jokes the president had told them in private, where his humor couldn't do him any political good...
...Because," the housewife replied, "the plumber is coming in the morning?' If there was a more effective put-down of Communism, I never heard it...
...We're trying out a new technology today," he said, referring to the small speaker that sat atop his desk, "one with a hookup that will enable me to hear you...
...It concerned a Soviet housewife who needed a new refrigerator...
...Cardinal Casaroli then disclosed his plan to the pope...
...And one of New York's finest, a big policeman, grabbed him and said, 'Where do you think you're going...
...Don't worry, Your-a Holiness," Cardinal Casaroli said once again...
...I wracked my brains...
...On the day of the speech, I turned the television set in my office to the closed-circuit White House channel, then settled myself in one of my big armchairs to watch the president deliver the speech from the Oval Office...
...God be thanked...
...He appreciated humor for its own sake...
...In one-a minute," Casaroli announced to the crowd, "the Holy-a Father, he's-a gonna drop a feather from this-a balcony...
...Now when I arrived at the White House, I tended to think of humor as something that happened at fraternity parties, on road trips, or during visits to the Nugget Theater to cheer Bluto in Animal House...
...ilk...
...I asked Dana Rohrabacher, who of all the speechwriters had known the president longest...
...It reassured people...
...Reagan taught me otherwise...
...Those are the most enormous ears I've ever set eyes on...
...Why would you possibly want to know whether we'll be delivering the refrigerator in the morning or the afternoon...
...And I thought the best way to test it would be to tell an old story" This wasn't part of my text...
...Reagan never lost his sense of humor—not when the economy went sour, not during the lowest moments in our relations with the Soviets...
...Reagan replied simply, "He ought to pay them...
...I couldn't get the vice president to settle down and talk about speeches until he'd let me in on the joke the president had just told him...
...Making a point, achieving a bond with an audience—whatever the particular use to which Reagan might put a quip or a joke, his humor, I gradually realized, always produced a larger and more important effect as well...
...Peter's Square, half a million Italians shouted, "Papa...
...Take-a my heart, Papa...
...Papa...
...The preacher, the president explained, continued in this way, admiring the crops and praising the Lord, until the farmer broke in...
...I leaned toward the television...
...The joke, as the president told the audience, was a favorite inside the Soviet Union itself...
...Comrade," the refrigerator salesman replied, "as I just told you, it won't be for ten years...
...Ronald Reagan appreciated humor not only because he could employ it to political effect...
...Which farmer joke...
...Those are the biggest, reddest tomatoes I've seen in my life," the preacher said...
...The pope, it seems, needed a heart transplant, but like a lot of people in that position, was finding it difficult to locate a donor...
...Papa...
...Will you be delivering the refrigerator in the morning or the afternoon...
...Reagan taught me to appreciate the uses of humor, as I've said...
...Well: the young man says, 'I'm only trying to get to the other side of the street there...
...You just-a listen to me...
...Ronald Reagan might have retained the support of the Irishmen in the Knights of Columbus if that one had ever gotten out, but he'd have found himself in a lot of trouble with the Italians...
...By noon, half a million Italians had jammed St...
...How do I choose one person from among so many...
...In the summer of 1986, for example, I was assigned to write a speech for the president to deliver to the Knights of Columbus, a national organization of Catholic men...
...Pfft...
...A moment later, the pope and Cardinal Casaroli stepped onto the papal balcony together...
...He has a hundred of them...
...It was coarse...
...When they heard him making jokes, Americans could see he believed it...
...And whoever that feather-a lands on, that person is-a gonna have the honor to give the Holy-a Father his heart...
...Overwhelmed by this display of devotion, the pope stepped onto the balcony to acknowledge the cheers...
...Ronald Reagan was an Irish Protestant...
...It's the same people who've been repairing the Statue of Liberty...
...Praise the Lord...
...His is just flawless...
...Poking fun at his age at a dinner for news photographers, Reagan said he looked young because he had a good makeup team...
...This particular farmer joke, as I learned when I listened to the president deliver the speech, concerned a rustic who spent weeks working on an overgrown creek bottom, Bearing the land, fertilizing it, planting it with vegetables, and then tending it as the crops came in...
...Take-a my heart, Papa...
...It was perfect...
...But he also taught me to appreciate the meaning of humor...
...she asked...
...Aside from including a passage in which Reagan announced plans to convert, I could think of nothing...
...He got about fifteen feet out and he turned around, and he says, 'They don't give them Protestants much time, do they...
...Then he paused...
...Pfft...
...I could have written page after page of high-flown oratory...
...Bush pursed his lips and blew as if trying to keep a feather from landing on him...
...Well," Reagan continued, "When that New York policeman—Irish himself—heard that brogue, 'Well: he said, `now, lad, wait: He says, 'You stay here until the light turns green, and then you go to the other side of the street...
...I mean perfect...
...You'd have come up with dozens, and quite a few would have been so politically incorrect that if they'd ever leaked, they'd have gotten the chief executive into trouble...
...The world contains more good than bad, more courage than cowardice, and more reason for smiles than for tears...
...Sometimes the president would use humor to make a point...
...In differing circumstances the president would employ humor to differing ends...
...Which brings me to a second matter...
...F xamine the Public Papers of the Presidents, the vol- umes published by the Government Printing 4 Office that contain all the utterances of our chief executives, and you'll see that during his eight years in office Ronald Reagan produced enough quips, jokes, stories, and witticisms to fill a couple of volumes in their own right...
...And as the papal feather floated down to St...
...My Italian accent isn't all that good...
...Take-a my heart...
...The president's eyes twinkled...
...Reagan knew perfectly well that life often proves tragic, of course...
...Humor was low...
...When during the president's 1984 re-election campaign a reporter shouted, "What about Mondale's charges...
...The next morning the Vatican newspaper, L' Osservatore Romano, acting on Casaroli's instructions, broke the story about the pope's condition, announcing that John Paul needed a heart donor immediately...
Vol. 36 • August 2003 • No. 4
