Don’t Let Club’s Name Fool You

The name Henry David Thoreau suggests the thoughtful consideration of nature, the refusal to yield to an unjust law.

But on the fifth anniversary of the Henry David Thoreau Society of Orange County, club founder Tom Koch quickly turns aside any questions about Walden Pond or civil disobedience.

Thoreau, Schmoreau, it’s all the same to him.

“It’s just a name one of our members came up with on the spur of the moment,” said Koch, a 71-year-old resident of Leisure World in Laguna Hills whose name is pronounced Coke. “It gets very embarrassing when somebody thinks we do have some connection to Henry David Thoreau. I guess we’ve had the name so long there’s no hope of getting rid of it.”

The incongruity of the club’s name fits this man who has spent most of his life as a comedy writer, chiefly for the former comedy team of Bob & Ray. It is much like the subject matter of his old Bob & Ray comedy sketches:

Interviewer: I understand you are the official spokesman for the Thoreau Society.

Koch: I am.

Interviewer: And just how much does the life of Henry David Thoreau mean to your members?

Koch: Absolutely nothing.

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The Orange County Thoreau Society was founded by Koch and about 40 other disgruntled members of a local Unitarian church. After they broke with the church, they wanted to preserve their bond of friendship. But when one of the members applied for the free use of meeting room, she had to provide a club name.

“So just off the top of her head she said, ‘the Thoreau Society.’ There had been another group of Unitarians that had broken away that were named after another Unitarian minister. We found out later that Thoreau wasn’t even a Unitarian.”

The loosely organized group meets at 4 p.m. every second and fourth Sunday at the Irvine Ranch Water District to hear guest speakers and discuss an eclectic mix of issues and ideas. They boast a distinguished roster of former speakers, from former Gorbachev advisor Sergei Plekhanov analyzing the fall of the Soviet Union to Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray discussing legalization of drugs.

“Our name probably fools them,” said Koch, who edits the club’s monthly newsletter, Walden Ponderings.

“When I started the newsletter I said, ‘Now let’s give this a dignified name, let’s not call it something dumb like Walden Ponderings.’ So by a vote of 22 to 1 they voted to make it Walden Ponderings. I get no respect.”

Koch sees his newsletter essays, profiles and news briefs as a return to his roots, in a way. The journalism grad began as a radio news writer for CBS in Chicago and NBC in New York before making the transition to comedy.

“I started comedy with Bob & Ray. They came into NBC and did little five-minute bits live on the radio. They usually ad-libbed their stuff, but NBC didn’t want things going out over the network without knowing what was coming in advance, so they asked me to start writing for them.”

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Koch was recommended for the job because of his “continuity writing” for Dave Garroway, a popular disc jockey who would go on to become the first host of the “Today” show on NBC television. Koch wrote more than 3,000 scripts for Bob & Ray, who retired in the late 1980s.

“It was just an offbeat kind of humor. One of the sketches was about this guy who ran a paper clip factory. The paper clips were hand made, and he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t compete with the other paper clip manufacturers. He only turned out three boxes a week.”

Some of Koch’s routines were used during the comedy team’s frequent appearances on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight” show.

“The slow talkers of America was one of my bits that became kind of a classic. Bob answered all the questions very slowly and just made a nervous wreck out of Ray.”

Koch wrote for a number of television shows throughout the years, from a single episode for “I Love Lucy” to a job as staff writer on the “Jonathan Winters Show.” Television producer Norman Lear even put Koch in front of the camera occasionally. On “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” he played a bit part as a janitor.

“I didn’t like it at all,” he said. “I’d get stage fright. It scared the wits out of me.”

It’s been a life full of humor, Koch said, but also full of uncertainty.

“People would say I must have had such a great life doing this, people who were engineers, doctors, insurance salesmen or whatever. But it was the kind of work where every morning I would wake up and think, ‘My God, I wonder if I can do it again today.’ There is no way you prepare to do it, or even know how you do it.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Profile: Tom Koch

Age: 71

Hometown: Indianapolis

Residence: Leisure World, Laguna Hills

Family: One son and three grandchildren

Education: Bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s degree in political science from Northwestern University

Background: Radio sports reporter for CBS in Chicago and NBC in New York; staff writer for the “Monitor” radio series in the 1950s; comedy writer for Bob & Ray; writer for various television shows including “The Jonathan Winters Show”; wrote for television producer Norman Lear and appeared in several of his television and movie productions; Mad magazine contributing writer for 37 years; founder of the 5-year-old Henry David Thoreau Society of Orange County

Why Thoreau?: “It’s just a name one of our members came up with on the spur of the moment. It gets very embarrassing when somebody thinks we do have some connection to Henry David Thoreau. I guess we’ve had the name so long there’s no hope of getting rid of it.”

Source: Tom Koch; Researched by RUSS LOAR / For The Times