What was the speechwriting life back in the day?

Wanted: Stories from the old school. A 1960 Associated Press article on former President Eisenhower speechwriter Emmet Hughes described his life: โ€œa 10-hour day in a quiet office overlooking the White House lawn. Often, special assignments kept him on the job around the clock. For relaxation, he played gin rummy with his pretty wife, Eileen.โ€

Ah.

The passage put me in mind of another graph I recently wrote in a foreword of a forthcoming book on speechwriting. This is how I described speechwriting two decades ago:

โ€œA big company with a public presence would have a speechwriting department, several middle-aged men whose activities ranged from reading, thinking, lunchtime drinking, hammering away at their old typewriters or their new word processors, and smoking pipes.โ€

If thatโ€™s hyperbole, then tell us, o wizened ones: What was it like to be a speechwriter back in the day? Weโ€™d like to collect your anecdotes in an article. Send โ€˜em to me at [email protected].

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