(Editor’s Note: In 1961, Dick Snider was appointed administrator of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness by President Kennedy. This column as the Daily Capital’s managing editor was followed three days later by his final one in that job.)

Topeka Daily Capital
April 23, 1961

Three times in a brief career in newspapering I have started a column something like this: “If you’ll turn down the lights and put on some soft violin music, I’ll sing my swan song.” It will have to do again this time.

This one is strictly personal, in that I’m leaving and this column isn’t. It will continue to appear from time to time. I will be in some new places and will be seeing some new faces, So maybe there will be something new here. It’s about time, too.

A friend of mine named Amy may sneak in here occasionally, as she has in the past. She knows we’re moving, and she is concerned about the status of Manfred the Wonder Dog. We are all concerned about him.

The rest of the family is afraid they can’t take him to Washington when they join me there. I’m afraid they’ll learn they can. And if they can, they will.

And I’m afraid there isn’t room for both of us at the public through. . . .

Seriously, I’d miss Manfred. He’s everything a dog should be except well-bred. I thought about him when I had to fill out government security forms, outlining my ancestry. Manfred’s family tree would look like a geometric mistake.

I’m going to miss a lot of things around here. A lot of people, too. . . .

I’ll never pass the Pentagon without thinking of Lindsey Austin. They’re built almost exactly alike. . . . I’ll miss the neighbors, particularly Tompkins and Kiene and our annual major project designed to make our Bermuda grass grow. I won’t miss the Bermuda grass. . . .

I’ll miss the golf, and the conversation that goes with it, but I won’t miss it half as much as the men I’ve played with will miss me. There’ll be a long time finding somebody as easy as I have been for so long. And I won’t miss the 19th hole. Fitness is the thing with me now, men. . . .

I suppose I should be honest and say I will miss those gatherings after the golf game. Where else can you hear a minimum of 17 men yelling about 17 different subjects, all at the same time? In that mess there is invariably only one gentleman, and I’ll really miss him. His name is Earful Grant. A good man.  . . .

I’ll miss my work with Dev Nelson, the Graham McNamee of Marquette, Kan. Dev and I must have done a few hundred basketball games together and I never could get him to admit a single one of them was a bad one. I can’t remember many good ones. . . . I’ll miss my co-workers, even though they’ve told me they’re fund to buy me a new portable typewriter fell a little short. They’re buying me, instead, a new ribbon for my old portable. . . .

I’ll miss my work with Tom King and the “Best of Europe.” I’m leaving with a group May 2 on the tour that was planned last fall. And next year it would have been the “Best of Cuba” with all expenses, including burial, paid. …

I’ll miss the people downtown, from Vic Whittaker’s to Max Prichard’s, which is a long walk. . . . I’ll miss lunch at the coffee shop and the patient lady named Marene who always refrained from pouring a bowl of soup over anybody’s head.

I’ll miss a lot more people and places I haven’t mentioned, some because they’re unmentionable, but I’m looking forward to this new endeavor. I’ll be working for a man I have admired, greatly, for a long time. I’ll be working with men who are convinced, as I am, that we have a chance – maybe the only chance any of us will ever have – to do something really significant.

I hope we get it done. I hope we get it done in a hurry, too, so I can come back and ask, “What’s new, besides some holes in E 29th Street?”

 
April 26, 1961

Saralena Sherman called and said the office people wanted to have a farewell party for me. I got there late, so the room was full when I arrived. I glanced around quickly, saying hello, and I noticed a gray-haired gentleman sitting in a corner and wondered who he was.

I started for the kitchen and Saralena asked me if I knew everybody there. In a situation like this, I am inclined to say, sure I do, but this time I turned and took another look at the man in the corner. I almost fainted.

It was Hizzoner, Mayor Ed Camp.

The shock must have registered on my face, because everybody started laughing as the mayor and I shook hands. He was laughing, too, so I figured this wasn’t going to be my night. It wasn’t.

When things settled down, they staged the presentation. Gary Settle trained lights and camera on us as we stood in the center of the room. The mayor spoke, and he didn’t leave anything out. He cut me up in tiny pieces while everybody howled.

He really did a great job. He commented on my contributions to city government. He thanked me for my part in keeping American dollars at home through the “Best of Europe” tours. He congratulated me for my temperance in all matters, including my always-unruffled calm on the golf course.

He dug up every old sore point from columns of the last two years and concluded by observing that, “While some people hate to see you leave, frankly, I don’t.” He expressed amazement that a hater of politicians of my stature would accept a political appointment.

He definitely slipped the needle into me in every vulnerable point, and there were many of them. Then he presented the trophy.

It’s a beautiful thing. It’s a man in a perfect golf swing, only he has a bull over his shoulder. The idea of throwing the bull is perfectly conveyed. Beneath it is an engraved plaque, which starts by saying:

“To Dick Snyder.”

It goes on and concludes with the other spelling mistake that grates most on my nerves. It says the trophy is from, “the Capitol staff.”

In thanking the mayor, I told him he had done a pretty good job on me and that I had it coming. Nobody could argue that point. The mayor didn’t, anyway. Then, much to everybody’s surprise, he presented me a key to the city in a nice case. I suspect he went out next morning and changed the locks, but all he said is that I might need the key to ever get back in.

The mayor and I had met only once previously, at one of those holiday parties where everybody shakes hands. If there was one word of truth spoken the night of the presentation, it came when I commented on this. I told the mayor I was glad I hadn’t become well-acquainted with him before. I told him it would have spoiled a lot of good column material for me. . . .