FOR JACK

A. E. Housman

The most fitting tribute to Jack Meathenia should emphasize the special qualities that made him a valued friend and colleague. Were he alive today, he would object to tearful farewells and condemn any maudlin sentimentality.

Jack was not only a student of humor; he was also a genuinely humorous man, possessing a keen sense of irony and seeing the absurdities of daily life. Added to Jack’s wit and humor, however, was another quality which truly distinguished him. He was a graceful man. Jack was one of the least pretentious men that I have ever known, and he toiled in a profession often saturated with pretense.

Jack spent the last eight years of his professional life creating and then struggling to sustain this journal. The fight was arduous, and Jack pursued it ardently, sometimes despairing of winning, but never surrendering. In eight years he tried kissing a lot of frogs and toads, hoping to effect some magical transformation from indifference to support. Happily, before he died, he knew that Studies in American Humor was likely to receive official sanction and support, justifying the many lost battles of the first years of the journal. His humor, his wit, and his honesty finally gave his dream reality. Knowing his perception of irony, I am sure that he would appreciate the fact that final approval for the funding came only after his death.

Jack spent literally thousands of dollars of his own money in an effort to keep the journal vital. Many people advised him throughout this period to lessen the quality of the journal by printing it more cheaply: by stapling the pages together, by using mimeograph rather than offset, by using less expensive paper. Quite rightly, he rejected all such advice, often saying, "I may be too poor to paint, but I’m too proud to whitewash." Jack firmly believed that a journal devoted to scholarship ought not to belie the work and care of those who contributed to its pages, for Jack knew that Studies in American Humor belonged not only to him but also to those who shared his love for the discipline.

Jack was always unselfish with regard to the journal. The special issues for Walter Blair and the late Arlin Turner illustrated Jack’s high regard for these two remarkable men. At Jack’s request, other scholars served as guest editors: Louis J. Budd of Duke University; Hamlin Hill of the University of New Mexico; and Mary Ann Wimsatt of Southwest Texas State University. Jack always tried to do what was best for the journal and for scholarship. The triumphs of Studies in American Humor he willingly shared; its failures he suffered alone.

My awkward bow should have ended with the paragraph above, but, to change the circumstances of Keats’s letter to Charles Brown rather dramatically, I can scarcely bid Jack good-bye, even in a letter, without a personal note. Jack was my friend, my colleague, and my associate. I loved him, and I shall miss him.

Jack Rosenbalm