Class Clown

I just finished reading Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass: How I went 77 Years Without Growing Up, humorist Dave Barry's autobiography.  I really enjoyed reading this book. Though not one of his comic novels or collections of columns, there are many humorous segments in it, especially his interactions with readers, from fans sending him articles about things he might want to write about to his dealings with what he calls humor-impaired readers, who actually took his tongue-in-cheek columns seriously. The book starts out describing his early years, but for me, the most interesting part was how he wound up becoming such a successful humor columnist. 

Barry started out after college as a reporter for the Daily Local News in Westchester, Pennsylvania. He loved that job and was very successful at it, which inspired him to go for the big time, working for the Associated Press in Philadelphia. That job turned out to be an administrative position, and he hated it, quitting after a year to become a business writing consultant, which he did for the next 7 years. That job actually led to his eventual success as a humor columnist. He traveled quite a bit and had a lot of free time in the evenings, and spent that time writing humor columns, which he submitted to his old newspaper, the Local Daily News. Publishing and promoting those columns eventually led to a job offer to write a weekly humor column for the Miami Herald's Tropic Magazine, and the rest is history. In the book he also discusses how he wound up covering presidential campaigns, as well as his decision to retire from writing a weekly column. And by the way, I took the photograph on the right of Barry at an author signing at Denver's Tattered Cover Bookstore, where I was working as the bookkeeper, back in 2016, when Barry was a mere lad of 68. And if you are a Dave Barry fan - and who isn't - I definitely recommend picking up a copy of Class Clown at your local library today.