Fathers
• H. Allen Smith was born in McLeansboro, Illinois, where his father had grown up. When his father had been a young man, McLeansboro had been the home of an undesirable element — rowdies who fought a lot and drank a lot. Mr. Smith once asked his father if he had been one of the town rowdies. “H*ll, no,” his father replied. “I was a respectable citizen. But I could lick anybody my size, and I could outdrink all of them.”
• British comedian Paul Whitehouse thought that he would appear in a Harry Potter film, so he told his daughters about it, and of course one daughter told her friends. Unfortunately, Mr. Whitehouse’s part was cut, and so his daughter’s friends thought that she had been fibbing. This made his daughter angry. In addition, his very youngest daughter got angry, complaining, “How dare they do that? Daddy’s a very good actress.”
• Sid Caesar’s father wanted him to become a musician and not be forced to work in a restaurant. One day, his father came home carrying a saxophone and told him, “Sidney, you’re going to learn the saxophone.” Sid asked, “Why?” His father answered, “Because someone left one in the restaurant.”
• Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, was inspired by his father, who had once held a world record for marksmanship at 200 yards. Mr. Geisel even framed and hung a target that his father had shot at during a competition. Mr. Geisel explained, “That target reminds me to reach for excellence.”
• As part of his research on evolution, Charles Darwin studied barnacles. He thought about barnacles for hours each day, and his office was filled with barnacles. His children began to regard such behavior as normal, and one of his sons asked about a neighbor, “Where does he do his barnacles?”
Flowers
• When theatrical impresario Florenz Ziegfeld fell in love with actress Billie Burke, he went to a florist and bought every flower there, including a few orange trees that were not for sale but had been intended for display use only. He ordered everything to be delivered to Ms. Burke, then sat back and waited for her to call him. She never called. Finally, after a week had passed he called her. It turned out that his telephone had been busy when she had tried to thank him for the flowers, so he had a special telephone installed for her calls only. Yes, later they got married, and yes, Mr. Ziegfeld continued to have a special telephone to be used only for communicating with his beloved wife.
• When children’s book author and illustrator Will Hillenbrand was growing up, he pulled the petals of a daisy off to see if a little girl named Jane loved him: “She loves me, she loves me not ….” The last petal told him that little Jane loved him, so he went to her home, rang the doorbell, and waited until the door opened. When the front door opened, revealing a dark interior (because Will was standing in bright sunlight) behind a screen door, he triumphantly exclaimed, “YOU LOVE ME!” Unfortunately for Will, when his eyes adjusted so he could see the interior of the house, he realized that the doorbell had not been answered by little Jane — it had been answered by her grandmother.
• Jacob August Riis did much to help the poor, and his book titled How the Other Half Lives let wealthier people learn about the poor living conditions of the poor. Mr. Riis was able to rear his children outside the slums, in an area with fresh air and flowers. His children used to pick daisies and ask him to take the flowers to “the poors,” as the children called them. Mr. Riis gave the flowers to children who barely knew what a flower was.
• Actress Paulette Goddard was once bothered by the unwanted attentions of a would-be suitor. Hearing that the man had asked her servants what her favorite flowers were, she told them, “Tell the idiot I adore white violets. He’ll never find any, so I won’t have to bother to thank him.”
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Copyright by Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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