AMONG THE HATS I sometimes wear (when one or more of the grandkids hasn't managed to knock them off), is president of the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications. It is, as Daniel Webster said in defense of Dartmouth College, a small school, but there are those who love it.

I love the school because it is doing what Mrs. Loeb hoped: helping people in New Hampshire improve their communication skills and becoming a resource for continuing education about the First Amendment. (For info, see www.loebschool.org.)

The school had its big annual fundraising event earlier this month, honoring those who have fought for or otherwise exercised their First Amendment rights. Our speaker was Vice President Joe Biden, who recalled his own close encounter with the First Amendment as a freshman U.S. Senator.

He has framed in his bathroom — and I now have on my desk — a copy of a page one editorial by the late William Loeb, Mrs. Loeb's husband and predecessor as Union Leader publisher.

In it, Loeb excoriated Biden for saying that he didn't know about other senators, but he was worth even more than the salary he was then receiving.

“The voters of Delaware who elected this stupid, conceited jackass to the Senate should kick him in the rear, to knock some sense into him, and then kick THEMSELVES (Loeb loved capital letters and boldface type) for voting for such an individual to represent them.''

Biden told our audience that he keeps his copy because it reminds him to be humble, and it also reminds him of an individual's First Amendment rights.

The Veep was nice enough to sign my copy. Of Loeb's fiery rebuke, Biden wrote, “he may have been right at the time.''

That's pretty cool.

Also pretty cool, and I didn't get to thank her at the time, were the few well-chosen words of Dianne Mercier, president of People's United Bank.

People's United was good enough to be one of our event's major sponsors (of the Free Press reception, as it happens).

Mercier said that as a young professional she had been moved by this quote from that famous Greek philosopher, “Anonymous.''

“Be careful your thoughts for they become your words.

“Be careful your words for they become your actions.

“Be careful your actions for they become your character.''

She said, “As a young person, with a healthy dose of Catholic guilt, I used to believe this quote meant don't think, say or do bad things. But as time has gone by, and I have been blessed to meet the kind of people who are honored with the (school's) First Amendment award, I realized that my belief was not so much inaccurate as it was incomplete; and the honorees at this event know that well.''

“They know that they must think about things that are easier to ignore. They must speak about those things that bring risk to them.

“They must and do act upon things that bring jeopardy to them. And in doing so they develop and exemplify a sacred character.''

Thanks, Dianne. I couldn't say it better myself, but it's important that the First Amendment lets us all have a go at it.

Write to Joe McQuaid at publisher@unionleader.com.