By CHUCK OFFENBURGER

DES MOINES, Iowa, Nov. 16, 2024 – It started, I’m pretty sure, in November of 1970 when I was invited to speak at the Hamburg High School football banquet in that southwest Iowa town.  Was it held in the school lunchroom?

It ended last Thursday evening, Nov. 14, when I was invited to speak at the annual “Celebrate” banquet of Dr. Richard Deming’s “Above + Beyond Cancer” organization in the grand ballroom of the Hilton Des Moines Downtown hotel.

It was the perfect place and time to end my 54 years of public speaking.  After being up in front of more than 800 audiences, by my best estimate, the good people of Iowa have surely heard enough from me.

On the big screen! (Photo by Mary Riche)

I asked the big crowd at the Above + Beyond Cancer event if, in the spirit of the “Celebrate” theme of the evening, they’d help me celebrate three things:

–First, my own recovery from two go-’rounds of lymphoma cancer in 2009 and ’10, thanks to a stem cells transplant I received at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. I learned a whole lot about life going through that, maybe most importantly just how much I love it.  “Good morning, Chuck!” oncology nurse Scott Schroeder said cheerily as he came into my semi-isolated room early the morning of Nov. 15, 2010. “Happy T-Day – this is the day we do the transplant.  It’s the first day of the rest of your life.  Are you ready?”  Was I ever!  Yes, cancer took my wife Carla, way too young in 2021.  Cancer left me with my mind, spirit and heart.  Later, I followed them to my friend of 50 years Mary Riche, who’d help take care of both Carla and me.  Mary and I surprised ourselves by falling in love and marrying, and life is very good.  My goodness, 14 years after my diagnosis, I’ve retired three oncologists!

–I also asked the crowd to join me in celebrating the life and career of Dr. Deming, 70, the oncologist who founded and leads Above + Beyond Cancer.  He has treated and helped so many cancer patients in Iowa, and beyond.  I never doctored with him, but I told the crowd that I really believe his philosophies on life, living and spirituality have been as important to my health as any treatment or medication I had.  Then I read them excerpts of a story I wrote in 2015 after a three-hour interview with Deming. (You can read that story by clicking on this link.) I ended that part of my celebration by saying that “Dr. Richard Deming may well be the most interesting and inspiring Iowan of our era.”

–Finally, I asked the people to join me in celebrating the end of my run as a public speaker.

A public speaker’s tools. (Photo by Mary Riche)

I told them about the Hamburg Wildcats’ football banquet in 1970.  I mentioned briefly my speeches at dozens of high school and college graduations; banquets of Chambers of Commerce and economic development groups; the Pork Producers; county chapters of the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association; church groups; church services; pep rallies; RAGBRAI stops, and even the 34^th annual “Rabbit Feed Stag” by the members and guests of the Rotary Club in North English, Iowa.

The Rotarians there would hunt rabbits through fall and early winter, pick a night in late January or early February, and serve up their kill to their buddies and customers. The dining started with hors d’oeuvres of batter-fried pig testicles and beer.  The rabbits were the main course.

In my follow-up column about the North English Rotary event in the Des Moines Register on Feb. 7, 1984 – a column that was headlined “High society and me” – I described my speech to the rowdy rabbit eaters this way: “When speech-making time came, I pulled out a rabbit’s head from a costume I had in a bag, put it on, and told them it was high time that someone had taken the rabbit’s side in the matter of this dinner. Of all the insults and indignities that rabbits have had to put up with,” I continued, “surely this bit of savagery in North English is the worst.”  I concluded by telling them I hoped they “will all go home and get bad gas.”

A day or two after I got back in Des Moines, I told my urbane friend Ken Sand, a superintendent of schools, about having been the featured speaker at the North English Rotary Rabbit Feed Stag. His answer? “That means you must have about done it all now, huh?”

And he said that in 1984!  Imagine all I’ve done now 40 years later!

I do know that, on my long itinerary, nearly anything that could go wrong in a speech has happened to me.  Microphones dying.  Rainstorms at outdoor ceremonies.  Big heat in small gyms with no air conditioning during graduation ceremonies.

Which reminds me: There was the Van Buren County High School commencement sometime around 1990.  It was held on the football field in Keosauqua.  The bleachers filled up with happy families and friends of the candidates for graduation.  The graduating class filed in as the band played “Pomp & Circumstance,” and took seats on folding chairs between a temporary stage and the bleachers.

On that stage, I sat with the Van Buren High superintendent, principal and president of the school board, while the salutatorian and valedictorian gave excellent speeches.  Did I mention the wind was blowing?

The program was barely started when a huge gust blew over two tall amplifiers on tripods. The custodians quickly righted those, and we continued.  Then came another huge gust, and two tall potted plans were blown off the stage.

By this time, the kids had finished their speeches and I was being introduced.  I resolved it would have to be “a two-fisted speech,” using both hands to grip the text that I had scribbled out earlier this day.  I was no more than started into that text when the biggest gust of wind of the afternoon blew up under the tail of my blazer, blowing it over the top of my head.  At the same time, a pitcher of water and a couple of drinking glasses, hidden in the podium, sucked out of their hiding place, banged into my legs, hit the floor of the stage and shattered.  And there I was, standing in glass, water and ice cubes, my trousers doused, but by God I still had a good hold on my text!

O.K., enough nightmares.

With Mary Riche, the critic, fan, editor and partner most important to me. I told the crowd that in bowing out of public speaking, I want more time to go to ball games, concerts and theatrical productions with Mary. (Photo by Lynn Hicks)

To wrap-up my “Celebration” speech Thursday night, I told the crowd in downtown Des Moines two of what have become favorite stories of my audiences over the past 30 years or more.

The first was how, inspired by young men on RAGBRAI, I decided to get my left ear pierced in 1989 and have been wearing a gold stud earring in it, even now as a 77-year-old man.

“For you fellows here who don’t yet have an earring like mine but might consider it,” I said, “you’ll discover there are some really good things about wearing one of these that you’ve never thought about.  Basically, I forget I’m even wearing mine, until I notice it in the mirror in the morning when I’m shaving.  You know, it’s just so stupid that it’s impossible for me to take myself too seriously the whole rest of the day.  And that’s a pretty good way for me to live.”

Then I went into the triumphant tale of how, in 1994, I appealed to my readers across the state to help me convince the G. H. Bass Shoe Co. to resume the production of their Black & White saddle shoes.  I’d worn them since I was in sixth grade back in my hometown of Shenandoah.  The pair I’d recently been wearing were worn out, and no shoe stores in Iowa seemed to be carrying them.  Bass Shoes balked at first, but when we rounded up 675 Iowans with their checks totaling more than $48,000, Bass “surrendered,” as they said.  (You can read a short-form of that story by clicking on this link.)  Soon, we’d put thousands of people all over everywhere in new pairs of Black & White saddle shoes.  And, as I told the crowd in Des Moines Thursday there’s a good thing about wearing these shoes that you don’t realize until you do; that is, when you walk into a room full of people and you’re wearing Black & White saddle shoes, they don’t notice your earring near as quick.

The crowd seemed to love those old stories as much as audiences have since the ’90s.  They were laughing loudly, joyously.

I didn’t say what I was thinking right then, but I’ll tell you now what it was: “What a blessing I’ve had all these years!”

Thanks for listening to me.

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You can comment on this column below or write the columnist directly by email at chuck@offenburger.com.