Fond Farewell to the Balladeer

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial/opinion page staff

published by the StarTribune

July 31, 1966

   BRAD MORISON cleaned out his desk Saturday and went home.  He won't be back--except to visit.  This was retirement, the end of an editorial writing career that spanned 40 years, in 18 of which he was Tribune editorial page editor.

   He estimates that he's written 20,000 editorials, which is probably conservative.  He's been a great man to have around.  When an editorial had to be written, and written fast, Brad was the man to turn to.  He has written on everything from the United Nations to politics, from the Minnesota Gophers to the short peony season.

   He once told me with a chuckle that Tom Dillon, a former boss, had characterized him as the most adept fellow on earth at writing authoritatively on any subject, whether he knew anything about it or not.

   But his job has demanded familiarity with the issues and the torments of the times and Brad knows the current scene, both locally and nationally, and has a keen sense of history.

   IN SOME AREAS, though, he is an appalling blank.  All he knows about an automobile is that it has four wheels and runs on gasoline.  He wouldn't know a carburetor from a spark plug and has changed only one tire in his life--with his wife, Gwen, supervising the job.

   He calls the plumber when a faucet drips, couldn't install a switch if his life depended on it, or mend an extension cord.

   This may have been what endeared him to me.  It gave us something in common.  Our association has stretched over 17 years.  We've ridden to work together daily, had lunch together, and never been on the outs, though we insult each other as naturally as we breathe and even chase the same secretaries, in a toothless, bland sort of way.

   Everyone likes Brad on sight, and his popularity is no mystery.  He has great sympathy and understanding.  He has time for the little things, and is not too busy to be gracious.  He comes to the office bearing roses or begonias.  Unfailingly, and with an assist from Gwen, he has provided Christmas cookies for the staff.  The ill or the injured get phone calls or cards--or special "Breakfast Ballads."

   When an associate, Jay Edgerton, now two years dead, had a heart attack and could not go at full throttle after a long convalescence, it was Brad who provided the attention and buoyed up Jay's drooping spirits.  He chauffeured him around, went with him to lunch, adjusted unobtrusively to Jay's slow walk and never had to leave him and go on ahead because "I must hurry back."

   BRAD IS BEST KNOWN, perhaps, for his Breakfast Ballads, the delightful jingles that have seasoned the Tribune editorial page from once to three times a week for more than a decade.  But if this stamps him as a versifier, the label is far too restrictive.  Brad's range as a craftsman is broad.  He is a writer of vast and varied competence, a man skilled with words and blessed with a discerning ear.

   Many who write never quite achieve polish, lucidity or organization.  But for Brad the right words fall into the right places with little apparent effort and no evidence of strain.

   Years ago he wrote a guest column for me, a hilarious piece involving hats.  I had lost mine and he was wearing it, with both of us blissfully unaware of the fact.  The riddle wasn't resolved until I found his hat in a restaurant while hunting for mine.

   It took Brad half an hour to write that piece.  It would have taken me half a day.  For years folks told me it was the funniest column I ever wrote.


Copyright StarTribune 2014.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.