I don't know what I'd have become if I hadn't been a footballer; I wrote down 'dustbin man' on a careers questionnaire at school till my dad made me change it to 'joiner'.
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.
To me, my Dad's the greatest guy - next to Jesus Christ - who ever walked this planet. He's been that outstanding male role model in my life. And he's still the same guy I grew up around, very conscious of the image he sets forth. As he would say, 'Wouldn't do anything behind your back that I wouldn't do to your face.'
I was 12 or 13, and I had seen a demo about origami at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. My dad, my step-mom, and I were at the Japan pavilion of Epcot, and my dad was going to get me an origami book. They had these really sick origami books with an overleaf, but those packs can sometimes blow, because they give you, like, eight sheets.
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.
There is nothing that would upset me more than my dad being bribed by the press. It's like, 'Just let them run it, then. Don't you give them ammunition.'
My dad never graduated high school. He was a printing salesman. We lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. We weren't rich - but we felt secure.
My dad graduated seminary there, and so did (sounds like) Mark Kimball's grandfather. They sang in a quartet together, my dad and Mark Kimball's grandfather.
I've never been very fully employed either but just think of what it's like, you know, to go home with a mortgage payment you know and kids and everything else. My dad had that happen to him in the early '30s.
My dad challenged every president from President [Dwight] Eisenhower and Vice President [Richard] Nixon to President [J.F] Kennedy, Vice President [Lindon] Johnson to President Johnson and Vice President [Hubert] Humphrey. It`s challenging the administrations to do the right thing.
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.
When I was 11 years old and I was on a road trip with my family. I turned to my dad and said, "Do you believe in Adam and Eve?" And he said he didn't think so. I remember that felt like a slap in the face, because if my parents questioned Adam and Eve, then they potentially questioned everything within Catholicism. Eventually that idea led to my feeling liberated, but at that time it was very scary.