Catherine’s father Jon Woods (the Ohio State marching band director) had told an incredibly cute story about his slain daughter at her funeral and measured laughter ensued. Her first grade teacher had approached Mr. Woods when Catherine was little, saying there was a problem. When asked to pick a song for the day, young Catherine had suggested ‘We don’t give a damn for the whole state of Michigan.’
“Laughter, an absent friend for six days in the anguished hearts of Catherine Woods’ mourners, floated across the grieving assemblage at Linworth United Methodist Church like a scarf pulled aloft by the wind,” wrote Mike Harden in the Columbus Dispatch the next day.
Mike Harden was a writer in Columbus Ohio for thirty five years. He made a career out of giving life to the mundane while also gifted at authoring a fleeting perspective to life’s big events.
“He savored the rich wine of life from the brim to the dregs,” wrote Harden on the passing of longtime Columbus restauranteur Salvatore Presutti. “And finally, those with whom he had shared his cup bore him home.”
A graduate of West Jefferson High School in 1964 and Ohio State University in 1973, Mike wrote a column for the Columbus Dispatch for nearly thirty years. At one point his column was distributed to 350 newspapers across the United States.
“Harden’s writing often includes a delicate blend of journalistic specificity, but also an attention to the poetic capacity to capture true moments of real people in his hometown,” wrote friend and colleague Richard Gilbert shortly after Mike died.
In 1975, he and his first wife Suzanne, adopted a five-month-old girl from an orphanage in South Vietnam. He featured Annie in many of his columns.
Mike had a huge heart and was a dedicated humanitarian.
When Hurricane Katrina slammed into the U. S. gulf coast on Aug 23 2005, causing $125 billion in damage in and around New Orleans, while killing 1392 people, Harden gave up three weeks of vacation to cook in a church kitchen on the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast.
Mike involved himself in a back-to-school project that provided backpacks and school supplies to disadvantaged school children from kindergarten to high school. Mike was one of the driving forces that made it so successful. “The ultimate goal was to allow these children the opportunity to enter school on an equal basis with their peers and help increase their self-esteem.” The project, at one time, supported over eight thousand kids each school year.
For his efforts, Mike won the 2007Will Rogers Humanitarian Award, given nationally to columnists whose sustained work in civic journalism produced tangible benefits for the community.
Mike loved Columbus.
“When American Electric Power (AEP) decided to transplant three hundred employees from the Big Apple to Buckeye country, it was not without much corporate hand-holding and gentle reassurance,” wrote Mike in the opening of his 1997 book ‘Discover Columbus’. “If you don’t like Columbus after a year, AEP promised unsettled employees, we will pay you to move back to Gotham. After twelve months of discovering that Columbusites were neither the Clampetts not the Cleaver, only a dozen packed their bags.”
Mike Harden saw a story in everyone and had the rare talent to capture the weight of human moments that often goes unspoken. On nurses: “Her heroism is never sufficiently praised, her dedication too infrequently recognized. Often her work is rewarded when the sick go home healed. At times it is profaned when, despite her most heroic efforts, the patient dies.”
His column was mostly serious, but sometimes humorous. He received national recognition from the NSNC (National Society of Newspaper Columnists) for both, the only columnist writing for a major U.S. daily to achieve dual recognition.
After Woody Hayes passed, the Columbus Dispatch published a 12-page Sunday insert, dedicated to the life of the Buckeye legend. Mike Harden wrote: “I was seated in the stadium watching the coach (Woody) as he paced the sideline studying what appeared to be an index card. He called three consecutive power slants into the line, gaining four or five yards at the most. The punting team ran onto the field, and Woody was still contemplating the card when the fan seated next to me shouted, ‘Dammit, Woody, turn it over. There’s plays on the other side.’”
He mentored journalism interns telling them, “to do journalism with passion or otherwise go sell insurance.” Harden wrote a play performed and produced at Ohio State University called ‘Please don’t hold the dog up to the casket.’
Mike was a member of a local rock band called the ‘Pink Flamingos,’ made up of local journalists who played the bar scene from 1982 and 1992. Founding members included Harden and Joe Dirck (Cleveland Plain Dealer).
Mike wrote nine books, including ‘Fight for Life’, the story of a Columbus-area father’s successful battle to get an epilepsy drug legalized so his daughter could take it. He also wrote ‘Passage to America’ about beloved Columbus restaurateur Papa Presutti. Papa signed off on the final manuscript two days before he died.
On Oct 13, 2010, Mike Harden succumbed to throat cancer. He was 64.
The summer before he passed away, local writer Ray Paprocki had an e-mail exchange with Mike who noted that by his estimates, he had written about 6300 columns since 1981. Mike wrote his last column just a few days before he died.
Sources: National Society of Newspaper Columnists, Mike Harden, 2007, www.columnists.com; Columnist Mike Harden dies after battle with cancer by Joe Blundo, Oct 14, 2010, www.dispatch.com; Michael Harden Obituary, Oct 16, 2010, www.legacy.com; Playing Favorites by Mike Harden, 1984; Road Songs by Mike Harden, 2001; Mike Harden Profile, Dispatch columnist, Some sense of place, May 5, 2012, www.bookmarkingoho.wordpress.com; Back-to-School Project, www.tomfennessy.org; Discover Columbus by Mike Harden & Brooke Wenstrup, 1997; Fill ‘er up by Heather Weekley, Aug 1, 2011, www.columbusmonthly.com; Upfront, Another year, and we thank you for it by Max S. Brown, editor, June 1978, Columbus Monthly; In search of poltergeists by Alfred Lubrano, April 1984, Columbus Monthly; Insider, Columbus Monthly, Feb, 1996, Mar 2011; The king of the Columnists by Ray Paprocki, Aug 1989, Columbus Monthly; Nurturing the homegrown playwright by Joanne Blum, June 1991, Columbus Monthly; Upfront by Ray Paprocki, Nov 2010, Columbus Monthly; Mike Harden commentary: Superdome will sparkle, but Katrina still haunts by Mike Harden, Jan 5, 2008, www.dispatch.com; Columbus Monthly (Jan, 1976); Joe Blundo interview, The Blinds Band, www.youtube.com; Woody Hayes Memorial Issue, April 12, 1987, Columbus Dispatch; Death of a Dream by Paul LaRosa and Erin Moriarity, 2008; Featured picture of Mike Harden is from the Columbus Citizen Journal (July 17, 1981). Courtesy CML.