By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
BG once had a mayor named Wes,
Whose command of words … well, I digress.
He penned limericks with ease,
And made it look like a breeze,
Much better than me, I confess.
Many in Bowling Green knew Wes Hoffman as mayor of the city from 1992 to 1999. They may have known about him being a B-24 navigator in World War II, flying more than 400 combat hours. And they may have known of his work as commander of the Air Force ROTC at BGSU.
Hoffman was a man of integrity, intelligence and service. But behind that disciplined exterior, was a poet – of sorts.
Hoffman, who died in 2010, was a king of limericks. He wrote the rhymed lines for city staff meetings, penned them for the weekly speakers for the Kiwanis Club, and even authored them for doctor’s appointments.
“Many of us are familiar with the off-color, bawdy limericks of our school days; Wes, on the other hand, treated the limerick as an art form,” wrote David Kuebeck, a fellow Kiwanian.
Hoffman had a commanding presence – that quickly melted away as he started reciting his limericks.
“He was able to gather facts and anecdotes from each speaker’s biography and subject area, and weave those extracts into a web of wordsmithery that kept those in attendance in stitches,” Kuebeck said.
So when Hoffman’s collection of Kiwanis limericks was located after this death, the club decided to put them into a book for all to enjoy.
“He did it week, after week, after week,” Kiwanis member Galen Ash said of the limericks. Ash served as the city’s police chief when Hoffman was municipal administrator. Though his limericks were in jest, his word as administrator and mayor was as good as gold, Ash said.
“He was a great guy to be around. You could count on everything he said,” Ash said.
Bowling Green’s current mayor, Dick Edwards, also a Kiwanian, was once the topic of Hoffman’s weekly limerick. “I was victimized,” Edwards said, smiling.
“It was always a highlight of any Kiwanis meeting to hear what he came up with,” Edwards said. “Some of them were a little off color.”
Though many of the limericks went on for several stanzas, Hoffman would recite them from heart.
As an Ivy Leaguer, “he had a command of the King’s English,” said Drew Hanna, a fellow Kiwanian.
Hoffman was shaped by the sacrifices and depravation of the Great Depression, Hanna said. He swam against political correctness, with many of his stories involving blondes.
Hanna himself was also the target of one of Hoffman’s limericks.
An attorney whose name was Drew Hanna
Slipped and fell on ripened banana….
Now it happened, what’s more,
On his own kitchen floor,
So he’s suing Drew Hanna manana.
John Fawcett, a Kiwanis member, formerly worked as assistant municipal administrator when Hoffman was mayor. Hoffman took his wordsmithery to work as well, Fawcett said.
“It was not unusual for Wes to share his limericks at staff meetings,” he said. “Wes could lighten the emotional atmosphere.”
In those settings, the limericks were also read without the aid of notes.
“It was a wonderful gift. It seemed to just roll off his head. He was a poet.”
Though Fawcett said he learned a great deal about city administration from Hoffman, he did not dare to try his hand at limericks.
“No one even attempted to. We recognized he was the master, so no one even tried,” he said.
Colleen Smith, a Kiwanian who worked 22 years with Hoffman at the city, feared that the limericks had been lost when Hoffman passed away. But the family later found them.
“We thought they were gone forever,” Smith said. “I am so delighted.”
Following are some one stanza samples pulled from Hoffman’s limericks about the weekly speakers.
For Margaret Tucker, who made it her mission to promote the Save the Woods Campaign …
“So alert all the town’s neighborhoods,
Be prepared to deliver the goods …
For none can duck ‘er
When Margaret Tucker
Is hell-bent upon saving the woods.”
For Keith Bradley, the auctioneer ….
“If by auction you’d have disappear
Old belongings you used to revere,
Then our speaker consider,
For he knows every bidder …
And it’s auctions that mark his career.”
For Michael Carroll, talking out global reactions to economic crisis …
“Our speaker today is no comic,
And he won’t discuss things anatomic;
He’ll trace global reactions
To financial contractions,
After eating his lunch gastronomic.”
For Judge Charles Kurfess …
“Our speaker today is a judge,
It’s a job that we do not begrudge,
He’s acclaimed for his prudence
In affairs jurisprudence,
But on principles he does not budge.”
Few would be daring enough to work BG naturalist Chris Gajewicz’s name into a limerick. But somehow, Hoffman did.
“If his field glasses went on the fritz,
Chris would never, my friends, call it quits,
He’d proclaim, in these words,
I’ll still look for the birds,
Or my last name just isn’t Gajewicz.”
For Judge Mark Reddin …
“If you’re driving your car like a rocket,
And a cop then decides he should clock it:
Then it really makes sense
To prepare a defense,
For you’ll surely end up on his docket.”
For news anchor Jerry Anderson …
“If it’s surfing TV you are doing,
And you wonder what you should be viewing,
Watch our speaker, he’s live,
Every weekday at five,
To report on the news that is brewing.”
Hoffman was also known to pen limericks for appointments, such as this one for an office visit to Dr. Edelbert Kuebeck …
“He’s renowned for medicinal skills
That will cure puzzling fevers and chills,
From a commonplace wheeze
To a novel disease,
He’ll correctly identify ills.”
“He was just an absolute very bright man,” Smith said of Hoffman. “He had a keen, keen sense of humor.”
Hoffman not only passed on his government skills, but was also willing to share his poetry secrets.
“One day during the fall of 2009, I sat with Wes in the front room of his home as he gave me an impromptu half-hour treatise on the limerick: its particular rhyme schemes, word choices and humorous utility,” Kuebeck said.
The collection of his limericks on Kiwanis speakers costs $6.25. Anyone interested in getting a copy should contact Smith at csmith@dacor.net.
