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Fourth Estate. After returning from Paris in 1920, Thurber went to work as a reporter on the Columbus Dispatch, where he stayed three years, mostly covering the City Hall beat. To Thurber's city editor, the pattern of a perfect lead for all stories whatsoever was: "John Holtsapple, 63, prominent Columbus galosh manufacturer, died of complications last night at his home, 396 N. Persimmon Blvd." Any attempts by the staff to get wit or originality into the paper usually landed on the spike. The city editor, who began by addressing Thurber as "Author" and "Phi Beta Kappa," came to respect him, but Thurber still sees this Legree in a recurring anxiety dream: "He runs up to my desk with a shoe in his hand and says, 'We've got just ten minutesto get this shoe in the paper.' Boy, do I move!"
In 1922,Thurber married Althea Adams, then a sophomore at Ohio State and one of the prettiest girls on the campus. He was chafing to write something better than city council doings, but had little confidence in his ability to make good outside
Columbus. Urged on by Althea, he finally decided to assault New York by way of France, which he had loved in his code-clerk days. When they had saved up $125, they took off.
After the novel Jim started in a Normandy farmhouse had petered out, the Thurbers went to Paris. He got a job on the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune at $12 a week. The Paris Trib's cable tolls were in keeping with the princely salaries it paid its staff: a fat 50 words of variegated news arrived from America each night. Once Jim was handed a flimsy containing the line, "Christy Mathewson died Saranac," and from memory and by Ouija board wrote a column obituary on the great New York Giants pitcher.
Big Town. The summer of 1951 marks the 25th anniversary of Jim Thurber's arrival in New York City. Knowing only Columbus and Paris, he loathed New York at first, with its roar, its dirt, its jostle, and the brash ways of its citizenry. But he got a job as reporter on the Evening Post, which reduced its price from 5¢ to 3¢ the day he went to work.
That fall and winter, he bombarded The New Yorker, a struggling humorous weekly little more than a year old, with 20 pieces, all of which were rejected. Althea argued that he was sweating too much over them and suggested that he bat one out in 45 minutes. On his next Sunday off, he did. It was about a man who got caught in a revolving door. The New Yorker bought it.
During the four years he was a reporter, Thurber registered countless impressions that he could not have gotten into any newspaper. These were filed away in his memory, and he began working them into enchanting monologues for the amusement of his friends. In the '20s and '30s, to sit with drink in hand and listen to Jim Thurber off on a free-association talking marathon was an indescribable pleasure.
When he used to mimic Harold Ross, he even looked like Ross, an incredible accomplishment.
One night in 1927 at a small party in Greenwich Village, Thurber met E. B. White, who was already doing "Notes and Comments" on the front page of The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section. White was immediately taken with him; a little later, he recommended him to Ross as a "Talk" reporter and writer.