By Roger Seay
Any time spent with Dr. Robert H. McGaughey III was like traveling with Bob Hope on a U.S.O. Show.
The one-liners never stopped. And sometimes you even got a musical number.
I don’t believe I ever heard the same joke twice. There are few people in my life who are walking encyclopedias of comedy.
The one thing I wished to have asked Doc – What is your favorite joke?
I’ve started a small collection from other people I know. The originators of dad jokes. So if you think you know what his favorite joke was – let me know.
But my story is of a “joke” that was pulled on Doc one week by his then secretary, Linda (Mayfield) Hall. It was a memory she shared with me before she passed away.
Linda was only one year or so into her decade-long time working as Doc’s secretary.
You probably remember going into what seemed to be a long, narrow office in Wilson Hall.
Inside was Linda’s desk with a typewriter. There was a filing cabinet. And beside the desk was a chair for us to wait for our time with Doc.
It seemed the entire room was lined with shelves. With every shelf crammed with books, binders, and papers. And there were sheets of paper sticking out of the books and binders. With stacks of other papers sitting horizontally on the books. The room smelled like a library. And it felt dusty like an attic. Like where your grandparents stored all the old copies of the newspaper.
I would often sit in that chair waiting for my time with Doc. Or it could have been hoping that Linda’s daughter, Mary, would pop in to say hello. I was slightly smitten.
As it was, Doc went away to some type of conference. He was gone for a week.
While he was away Linda took the opportunity to rearrange and re-organize the office.
Trying to put some reasoning into the way the office was operated.
When Doc returned to the office, he walked into a clean, dust free, organized, alphabetized space, which was not how someone like Doc operated.
If you don’t forget a joke, you certainly don’t forget where you put that 1957 article on typesetting on your shelf.
Needless to say, he was livid. For months Doc could not find the papers or books he needed.
Linda told me it was the only time that she ever feared getting fired.
But of course, she didn’t. And Linda went on to nominate Doc McGaughey for the Boss of the Year Award, which he won in 1989.
