Today is the Birthday of James Thurber (humorist - cartoonist)

from The Writer's Almanac (Garrison Keillor, American Public Media):

December 8 is the birthday of James Thurber, born in Columbus, Ohio (1894). His father was an underpaid civil servant who worked too hard; his mother was a funny woman who loved to play jokes. When he was seven years old, he was playing with his brothers and was shot in the eye with a bow and arrow; he went completely blind in one eye, and struggled with his eyesight for the rest of his life.
He dropped out of Ohio State University, spent a couple of years during World War I working as a code clerk, and eventually moved to New York City, where in 1927 he met the writer E.B. White. White helped get Thurber a job at The New Yorker. The men shared an office there, and White was so delighted by Thurber's little drawings that he helped get those published in the magazine, as well. They also collaborated on a book, Is Sex Necessary? (1929), a parody of self-help books that included Thurber's cartoons.
Thurber said, "Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility."