By Stuart Warner

Forgive me if I have cold feet, or any other extremities, about plunging into the ice fishing debate in Hudson, Ohio, the city where I lived for 15 years, and which I ridiculed as a columnist for almost a decade before that..

Hudson’s mayor created a media storm this week after declaring at a city council meeting that putting shanties up on a lake there could lead to prostitution.  (Or maybe catching crabs?)

The last time I wrote about prostitutes, more than 30 years ago, my Warner’s Corner column literally was ripped off the page by the managing editor about an hour before deadline. I was writing for the Akron Beacon Journal then. (Yes, the paper is fondly referred to as the BJ. Don’t judge.)

Anyway, I thought the column was innocent enough.  A Columbus politician proposed hiring prostitutes to spread the word about using protection from AIDS. I simply wondered how a lady of the evening might fill out an actual state application for the job.  I guess the column did sort of go off the rails when we got to the question:  Position desired?

I should also mention that my old boss also did not like my jokes about Muffy and Buffy and the rest of their well-heeled friends in Hudson, where he lived at the time.  How many Hudson housewives does it take to screw in a light bulb?  Just one.  She stands in the middle of the room and the whole world revolves around her.

Now, thanks to Hudson Mayor Craig Shubert, I maybe I should rewrite that old joke, substituting “ice shanty” for light bulb.

At a city council meeting Monday, a proposal came up to allow ice fishing at the lake at Big Springs Park. You should know that the Hudson council says it is non-partisan.  But there are only two parties in the city: Republican and Crazy Rich Republicans.  Then there is Shubert, who is obviously worth every penny the city is paying him for his ceremonial position.

The mayor went all Music Man in his response to the proposal, saying,   “… if you then allow ice fishing with shanties, then that leads to another problem. Prostitution,” he said.  (“We got trouble.  Right here in Hudson City.  Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for … well, you know.”)

Shubert knows all this, he later wrote in a statement, because of his experience as a former award-winning journalist.

I also claim to be a former award-winning journalist, but I thought those fishermen were all alone in those shanties, perfecting their baiting.  In fact, I’m told, some are masters of their craft.

That’s just one of the many jokes about poles, shrinkage and hook(er)-line-and sinker that soon clogged the internet over the next couple of days.  “Don’t come knockin’ if my shanty is a rockin.”   (It’s not true that Hudson received 2,000 fishing license applications the next day.)

Go ahead and snicker.  I did. The town founded by explorer David Hudson as a proud part of the Western Reserve at the end of the 18^th century became a national laughingstock.  Again.

And not in a good way.  Back in the 1980s, when I was writing jokes about Hudson, people were laughing with Muffy and Buffy. (The Hudson 2s … you can never be 2 Rich, 2 Tan or 2 Thin.) Now, they’re laughing at them.

The Hudson of 2022 seems to have become a microcosm of our great national divide. Educators have been threatened, culture has been canceled and Critical Race Theory has been bandied about as the evil stepchild of education, though it seems few people know what it means, especially politicians. Sad for a community that once embraced its heritage as an important stop on the Underground Railroad for escaped slaves fleeing to the north and the boyhood home of abolitionist John Brown.

Shubert made headlines last fall when he demanded that school board members resign or face charges of child pornography because of a supplemental creative writing course that contained references to sex and drinking. A video of Schubert’s proclamation went viral and made him a hero in some conservative circles, according to news reports.

After that, several members received threats significant enough for the school district to report to police.  According to the Beacon Journal, one woman wrote:  “YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER THAN TO DO THIS , RESIGNING WILL BE A LOT LESS PAINFUL FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, either choose to resign from this board of education or you will be charged.”

A subsequent investigation determined that the materials were not pornographic. Schubert pleaded his poor hearing as the reason he might have misunderstood what another politician told him about the course.  

Summit County Prosecutor Sherry Bevan Walsh, a longtime Hudson resident,  then investigated Schubert’s role in prompting the threats. She brought no charges but said in a statement that “the reckless conduct by Hudson’s mayor resulted in threats, fear, and hate-filled words from around the country.”

A couple of months before the child porn allegations, Hudson made national news after American Legion and Hudson American Legion Auxiliary leaders turned down the microphone of a veteran as he spoke at a Memorial Day ceremony about Black Americans’ role in the holiday, according to the Beacon Journal and other reports.  Then school district officials investigated charges that high school students were making racist and homophobic comments on a video game app.

During a follow-up school board meeting to discuss diversity, one parent brought up the specter of teaching CRT in the classrooms, though there is no evidence that it has been. In fairness, most of the parents at the meeting spoke in favor of diversity.

But we’re getting far too serious now.

Let’s return to fishing lures and hookers.  There actually is an Ohio website about ice fishing called Rock the Lake, which explains terms like creepers and jigging.  It also notes that some fishermen decorate their shanties like a Holiday Inn.  (Not making that up.)

Maybe that’s what confused the Hudson mayor.  I don’t know.  I’m no expert.

But I think I do know an ice hole when I see one.