When you have kids, you instantly feel that you do not want to do them wrong. Those dads that go off to Florida and start a new life, I couldn’t imagine that: seeing my kid once every Christmas, every three years. If I’m gone for six days it feels like too much.
I guess in my house when I was growing up, I was comfortable trying to be funny. And my dad, of course, it bugged him sometimes. He was trying to rest, and I was constantly trying to say something stupid to get a reaction. But I like doing these movies. You can do it in front of the camera and then it's over. I don't have to worry about being in front of too many people.
My dad was in the army. World War II. He got his college education from the army. After World War II he became an insurance salesman. Really, I didn't know my dad very well. He and my mother split up after the war. I was raised by my maternal grandmother and grandfather, and by my mother.
Music is more of a hobby to me than my hobbies, if that makes sense. I love music; my dad and brother were very musical, and music just happens to be one of my hobbies that became my vocation.
I suspect that had my dad not been president, he'd be asking the same questions: How'd your meeting go with so-and-so? . How did you feel when you stood up in front of the people for the State of the Union Address-state of the budget address, whatever you call it.
I was a coin collector.I didn't know I was nerdy at the time until I felt my 16-D Mercury Dime that was in uncirculated condition might be a panty dropper, and it turned out not to be. Then I stumbled into skateboarding, which kind of was cooler. But I wasn't aware of what was cool. My dad wasn't around so he couldn't shake me and say, 'Drop the coin collecting bit. It's not where you want to go.' So, that and the spelling bee and the chess, I think I had it figured out for myself.
I got into comics about the same time as music. By 12 years old, I had discovered my dad's killer comic book collection filled with Silver Age books from his youth...early Spider-Man, Thor, Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Detective Comics, Action Comics, you name it. Seeing those old books got me interested in new comics, so my friends and I would hit the local comic shop every Saturday to pick up the cool titles of my generation.
To you your father should be as a god;
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure or disfigure it.
1992 was the worst year of my life, to watch my dad lose. It was a painful experience. Yet when I became president, it was so much easier to be president.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddling, stacher thro'
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee.