What Fathers Know Best

It's a scene you'll remember well. You are poised in the hallway, ready to leave the comfort and security of home and face the real world as a grownup. You're almost out the door when Dad, smoking his pipe and wearing an elbow-patched tweed jacket, puts a hand on your shoulder and invites you into the den, explaining, "There are a few things I think you should know about life before you go." A few hours later, perhaps a little dewy-eyed, you leave, better equipped for the great unknown.

OK, so maybe that's not the way it happened. Maybe Dad just gave you a credit card and permission to call home collect. But sometime over the years, most of us got something in the way of advice from him, some sort of navigational guide to help us through life's severe weather. If it wasn't a long talk by the fireplace in which he confessed his bewilderment at the behavior of women and the peculiarities of sex, perhaps it was bits and pieces gleaned from a lifetime of having dinner at his table. There is a difference, after all, between what our fathers give us and what they think they give us. If we're lucky, they impart to us something special and unexpected, a piece of information that may weigh a fraction of an ounce but one we may carry with us for the rest of our lives. It may have to do with a principle whose violation is guaranteed to lead to disaster, or with the secure placement of one's wallet. Regardless, it has ultimately to do with the passing on of an intimate, personal culture. It doesn't matter whether or not the advice is foolproof, just that it gets passed along.

We wanted to find out how some notable fathers rose to the occasion, so we asked some of their children (often well known themselves) what they remembered about the things their fathers had told them.

•

Ron Reagan (son of the President): He never really tried to sit me down and give me advice per se. He preferred to do it by example. I admire him for his humility and for his kindness, and he's tried to impress upon me the importance of having a sense of humor and behaving as a gentleman. Of course, he was sometimes dismayed when I was an adolescent. He often said that a gentleman--a real gentleman--would always do the kind thing. That's the standard to live up to.

There's a story he told me when he was playing football in college. The team was on the road, and the players stopped off in his home town, Dixon, Illinois, where they were going to stay in the hotel. There were two black guys on the team. My dad went in with the coach to sign everybody in. The hotel manager looked out the window and saw the busload of football players, noticed the black guys and said, "Those guys can't stay here. I won't allow any black people in my hotel." The coach wanted to pull everybody out and say, "The hell with you; we're not going to stay here at all." But my father said, "This is stupid. There are no other hotels in town, and where's everybody going to sleep? On the bus?" So he went outside and told the team that he and the coach had gotten everybody they could into the hotel but that the place was a little short of space. And then he told the black guys--I can't remember their names--that they would go to his parents' house and stay with them for the night.

My dad never told them what happened, and he didn't learn until one of the guys was dying and he went to visit him in the hospital not long ago that those two guys had known all along what had gone on that night. It's like my father to not make a big deal out of that kind of stuff, just to do it, not to embarrass anybody.

He has a wonderful sense of humor, all kinds of self-deprecating humor, and he can be real cute in person--not in a bad way but in a real charming way, a real guileless kind of way. I've always admired that. He's never tried to come on terribly macho. I hate fathers who are always punching their sons on the shoulder. He's never done that.

On a more gritty note, when I was still living at my parents' house, we were sitting by the pool one day and I was in the flux of some adolescent hormonal surge, and he decided I ought to have a little advice. He told me, "Never sleep with a girl if you're going to be embarrassed to be seen on the street with her the next day."

I think that was more for the girl's benefit than mine. He didn't want me jumping on some girl and then leaving her in the lurch.

•

Kyle Rote, Jr. (son of Kyle Rote, Sr., football player and broadcaster): When I was 16, I took my first trip away from home--to England. My father was in New York, where my flight had a layover, and he went to a lot of trouble to arrange a meeting with me. I was all geared up for that father-and-son talk that typically involves what to expect in manhood and how to handle women.

When I arrived, he seemed very nervous for someone who'd been on national television as a broadcaster. Of course, I'd been anticipating some discussion of birth control or morality and wondered whether or not he'd be embarrassed.

Then he said, "Son, there are three things I want to talk to you about. Number one, take your raincoat with you wherever you go. Number two, always know where your passport is. Number three, stand close to the tour guide."

I said, "All right. All that makes sense. But don't you want to talk to me about anything else?"

"No," he said. "Go have a good time."

He put $20 in my hand, gave me a hug and put me on the plane. To this day, I don't know whether he had intended to discuss a lot more, got cold feet and backed off at the last minute. But we do refer to it as the day I learned about the birds and the bees.

•

Arthur Marx (son of Groucho Marx): My father was always giving me advice, and it was either humorous or grim. He was most generous, for instance, with his career advice, and I remember it all vividly.

At 18, I was very much into tennis and was ranked fifth in the nationals. In those days, it was strictly an amateur sport and the only way to make money was to be number one in the world. I was the captain of the tennis team at Beverly Hills High, one of four or five ranking juniors in the state, and had won the National Freshman Intercollegiate Tournament. One day, after playing one of my major competitors, I thought I detected a weakness in his game that would allow me to beat him in the tournament. I rushed home to tell Father the news. He cut me off in the middle and said, "Listen, you've got to think of something else besides tennis or you're not going to be number one. Your chances for that are one in a million. And only the top man can make a living at it, so you better think of something else." He was right at the time. I was born about 30 years too early for a tennis career.

He used to help me with my writing. I'd show him something, he'd read it and, usually, say it was terrible. Then he'd go over it and rewrite it his way. Once, I won an American Legion essay contest with an essay he had written for me. I was ashamed to collect the medal.

Then, when I was a struggling writer, he'd say, "Why don't you become a director? Most directors around here have no talent anyway. Look at Leo McCarey. He's driving around in Rolls-Royces. All he does is say, 'Groucho.... Give them the eyebrows.' That's his idea of directing. Even you could do that."

He was tough. He loved his kids until they got old enough to have a mind of their own. He thought the things he was telling you were for your own good. Before I sold my first novel, I showed it to him and he said, "That's no good. Six hundred pages is too long. You better rewrite it before showing it to anybody." Immediately after that, Simon & Schuster bought it. I realized then that I shouldn't show him anything first. He wasn't able to look at it in the right perspective. I try not to give my kids advice for that reason.

He used to give me advice about women, too. When I was going with my first wife, he told me, "Don't get married early. Do what I did and wait ... wait till you're a big success and then get married. In the meantime, play around." In the meantime, he was married three times.

When I was about seven and my mother was pregnant with my sister, he decided it was time to tell me about the facts of life. So he took me for a ride down a country road in his new convertible Packard and pointed to a pasture where one of the bulls was coupling with an attractive Jersey.

"You know what those two animals are doing?" he asked.

"Wrestling?"

"They're making baby cows." He explained how the bull put its penis into the female's counterpart, seeds shot out and pretty soon, a baby cow grew inside the mother's stomach. "And two years later, he'll be paying her child support."

(continued on page 210)Fathers know best(continued from page 206)

Another piece of advice that sticks in my mind resulted from a horseback outing we took together at a riding academy. After we started down the riding trail, my father asked me to trade horses with him. I immediately did, and soon after, we came to a large tree that had fallen across the trail. My original horse, with my father now on it, stepped neatly over the log. My horse, meanwhile, took a sudden wild leap, and I sailed over its head into some bramblebushes. My father, laughing, told me, "That horse I gave you is a jumper."

"Then why did you give it to me?" I asked, crying.

Still grinning, he said, "That'll teach you--never trust your father."

I got used to his humor. You got to be thick-skinned living with him. The thing about him was that he wasn't very thick-skinned himself. If you said something critical, he'd practically faint. But no matter how difficult, he was always funnier than hell. That was a compensating fact.

•

Kathy Cronkite (daughter of Walter Cronkite): When I was 23, I had just separated from my husband and was trying to figure out what to do with my life. I decided to go to Hollywood and become an actress. My father had seen me go through a lot of phases--this year, I'd want to do one thing and the next year, it would be something else. He said that if I was going to Hollywood, he would give me his blessing and help me out, but he thought I ought to make a definite time commitment and stick it out--no changing my mind or copping out. I wasn't in Hollywood very long before I realized that the one-year commitment I had set wasn't realistic and I extended it to five years. Knowing that he had suggested that type of commitment got me through. And it was the first time he had ever given me any advice or suggested a course of action.

There were instances when I was trying to decide whether or not to take a particular job; maybe I didn't feel good about it or didn't like the people involved but I would be tempted, because, after all, it was work. And my father would say, "Wait a minute. You don't have to do that. Do what's right."

There are general philosophies about life, ways of dealing with things that I observed and learned from him--important things such as integrity, professionalism, standing up for what you believe and doing your best at a job. He never sat me down and gave me specific advice, but those things were more important.

•

Patrick Wayne (son of John Wayne): One of the most important lessons I learned from my father had to do with work. While we were doing The Comancheros in Utah, there was a scene in which I had to ride a horse alongside a moving camera car. It was a critical shot--you had to know what you were doing--and I looked terrible. When we saw the dailies, my father turned to me and said, "You're going to learn to ride a horse or you're going to get out of the business."

I was hurt, embarrassed and mad, but I went out immediately and started working my tail off. We shot the scene again two weeks later and it went great. Since then, I've been very careful to be prepared physically for whatever I have to do, whether it's riding a horse or fencing. If you're prepared to do the physical action, it frees you to work on the emotional part of the scene. I don't think he was talking just about riding a horse. He was talking about being prepared for all aspects of a film. It became a powerful lesson for me.

Did I view him as a hero? Not as a hero but as a fabulous father. He was a much more three-dimensional person than he allowed himself to be in public. He had a much better sense of humor than people expected. He was very vulnerable and very sensitive.

I remember when Harvard invited him to a Lampoon-sponsored student debate, he was so worried he couldn't sleep at night. He was so afraid that he was going to fall on his face, that they were going to tear him apart, be wittier than he was and get the best of him. He represented the antithesis of the liberal Harvard views about such things as Vietnam. But it turned out that they loved him. Someone asked him, "Is that real hair?" He said, "Yes ... it's real hair. It's not my hair, but it's real."

When he saw me following in his footsteps and pursuing a film career, instead of telling me about pitfalls, he made me experience them firsthand. He would take me on grueling public-appearance tours--21 cities in three weeks--during which he'd be working all day with the media and getting on another plane at night. Without saying "This isn't the greatest thing in the world," he acted it out for me, so I got my perspective from the real world.

•

David Wallechinsky (son of Irving Wallace, writer): Our generation--and I touched on this in my book What Really Happened to the Class of '65?--got its advice from its peers more than previous generations did. Being close to your parents was considered uncool. I did have a close relationship with my father. But perhaps one of the reasons I picked up the values he imparted to me was that he wasn't heavy-handed. There was never a time when he said, "Son, I want to talk to you." If any advice came up, it was a little bit here and a little bit there.

The thing I recall most is professional advice. I started writing my first novel a few years ago and he was delighted. He said, "Son, the key thing is always to keep your reader in mind. Don't write for the critics and don't write for intellectuals. Write for your readers. Have respect for them. Don't make it difficult for them to understand what you're trying to say. For example, don't write a scene from more than one person's point of view. Don't go too far without having dialog and conversation. Let your characters say it rather than you, because it's easier for the reader to read. And make sure that you have a set time frame for all the action. Have a certain date by which everything has to happen. That way, all the characters in the novel are waiting for that date." In my novel, what has to be done by the main character has to be done within ten days and he knows it by the third page.

Something he always said about writing--which is a very important piece of advice about fiction in particular--was, "Don't tell anybody what your book is about and don't show it until it's finished. It's not that anybody will steal your idea but that all that energy that goes into the writing of your story will be dissipated."

Another piece of advice both of my parents were adamant about was, "Never, never become an actor." My father thought actors were too egotistical and that the profession almost required that.

I got married a few years ago but had been living with my wife for more than seven years. My father's advice was, "Don't forget your wife always comes first, no matter how beautiful the other women are. Treat your wife well and never fall in love with an actress."

•

Lorenzo Lamas (son of Fernando Lamas): When I was 17, I was all set to go to the University of California at Santa Barbara to study animal science. I had taken some drama and writing courses at Santa Monica City College during the summer. Something clicked when I started acting, and I started thinking it was what I wanted to do. Prior to that, the thought had never entered my mind.

One day, Esther Williams--my stepmother--my dad and I sat outside on the porch and I said, "I might want to give acting a shot instead of going to college."

There was a long pause. Then my father said, "Oh, shit. Well, are you positive? This is a very competitive industry and the fact that you are my son won't particularly help." I kind of tuned in to that and then he asked, "Can you act?"

I said, "I don't know."

He made up a scene. I was supposed to be coming home from work and had run over a dog, which I stuffed into my trunk. In the scene, I had to tell the owners that I had killed their dog. By the end of the scene, Esther was in tears and my dad was looking at me wistfully.

That afternoon, they gave me their support. My father also gave me some important advice. He said, "Before you sign anything, get at least two dependable sources to take a look at it."

He also told me not to take rejection personally. It's important to take your work seriously but not yourself.

He always told me never to lie, because then you have to keep different stories in mind. The truth is easier to remember.

I got married when I was 22. My father's advice was just to be very sure. "It's something you only want to do once," he said. "I've been married more than once and it may be obvious to people that I like marriage. But be really sure." Victoria and I dated for another six months before we both decided it was right.

•

James Mac Arthur (son of Charles MacArthur, co-author of The Front Page): I can think of one piece of advice he gave me, but it's rather frivolous. When I was about 18, I had done a TV show, Climax. It had been directed by John Frankenheimer, and the following year, a movie was made out of it that won an award at a European film festival. It was a good show and got a lot of good reviews. But there was one that wasn't so good. I said to my father, "Gee, it's funny that all the other reviews are so good and this one isn't. I think I should write a letter and complain."

He looked at me and said, "Son, never get into a peeing contest with a skunk."

He was not the kind of father to take you on a fishing trip. If he couldn't sleep, he'd wake me up at one A.M. and we'd sit up talking until around four. When I was about 11 years old and through with school for the summer, my father said, "How would you like to go to New Mexico and live on a ranch?" We lived in New York and, of course, I thought that a sounded great.

Ten days later, I got on a plane--one of those milk-run jobs and a 15-hour flight. We stopped in every little town between New York and New Mexico. We finally landed and I got off the plane. But there was nobody there to meet me. So I called my father: "I'm in New Mexico and no one came to pick me up."

There was a long silence and then my father said, "Oh, my God. I forgot to tell them you were coming."

•

Peter Fonda (son of Henry Fonda): You want me to recall a conversation in which he gave me advice? I've spent about 43 years looking for the same thing. He was not one to do a lot of talking.

He was always telling me to stand up straight. I started hearing that from childhood on. I was slouching, of course, trying to emulate him.

Most of the advice I got came from aunts, uncles, cooks and my grandmother, who raised me. My aunts and uncles, for instance, advised me not to date nurses, because they'd only get pregnant.

The conversation with my father that sticks in my mind most was when I was about 16 or 17 and he was between marriages. We went out to dinner alone in New York City. For me, it was quite an occasion. I was always trying to make conversation with him, which was difficult, because he didn't like to talk. He thought he was no good at it, which was not true.

Anyway, I asked if he had ever had a dream about flying. He got a funny look in his eyes and told me he had a recurring dream about entering his house with a date. There was a large foyer in the hallway, with a banistered stairway that he climbed. When he got to the top, he looked down and said to his date, "I bet you've never seen this." Then he jumped off the banister and flew around the room. I thought that was pretty incredible, because I had the same dream, only I would jump off the mantelpiece in the living room or, sometimes, out of a tree. My father explained that the dream had sexual connotations, which I hadn't realized.

He was a man who felt awkward about life. He was embarrassed about having been married many times, he was embarrassed about giving us compliments. If he thought we were doing a good job, we would hear it from his agent. He was painfully shy around us. I wish I had read his biography years ago, because I didn't understand that until later. I thought I was a total failure--that there was nothing I could do to make my father appreciate anything about me. Not until his last three or four years could I force him to tell me he loved me. And that was after the success of Easy Rider and all the other things.

When I was about 19, Cliff Robertson asked me if my father had given me any advice about going into acting. Dad had never said anything, but I didn't want to sound like a whiny son. So I said, "No, my father only told me to do my best at anything I was going to do."

•

Dean Paul Martin (son of Dean Martin): My father didn't come to many of my little-league games, because it would have caused a lot of commotion and he felt it took away from the game. He came to a few but wasn't one of those who rant and rave on the side lines.

In one game, I pitched my heart out--close to a no-hitter--and we lost. I was shattered. I threw a tantrum and was in my room sulking. I thought it was the end of the world. So my father came up to my room and said, "Hey, what are you so upset about? First of all, you looked great. You wore your uniform right. Your cap looked like you had it on straight, didn't it?" He did a couple of shticks like that, about how great I looked in my uniform, to get me laughing. Then he said, "Listen, seriously, all you can do is play your best. If that's not good enough, too bad." I was about 13 then, and that conversation sticks in my mind more than any other we had.

•

Jack Ford (son of Gerald R. Ford): Right before the 1976 Presidential campaign, I had been interviewed in Oregon and was asked what I thought about the decriminalization of marijuana. The reporter asked if I had ever smoked marijuana and I said yes, I had. At the time, that was a very controversial statement, especially coming from a member of the First Family. Tricia and Julie Nixon had said they had never even met anyone who smoked pot. This was not a popular position with Republicans.

As I flew home and read the newspapers, I saw headlines screaming, "President's son says he smokes pot." All the way back, I was thinking, I've done irreparable damage to a man I love very much at a critical juncture in his career. What's he going to say to me?

As soon as I returned to the White House, there was a message for me to see Dad. I waited for the trip to the woodshed. Ironically, when I sat down with him, instead of chastising me, he said, "When you get asked a question, you've got to answer it honestly. That's the way your mother and I have raised you. Just because we're in the White House is no reason to change that, because once we're out of the White House, we'll be able to sleep better."

To me, that had an incredible lasting impression. He could have been selfish and said, "How could you do this to me? Couldn't you have just dodged the question?" For him to say what he did despite the personal sacrifice was an incredible gesture. I hope I could be half the man he was in that circumstance.

•

Michael Spock (son of Dr. Benjamin Spock): "Trust your instincts about the right course to follow even when strong logic advises another path."

It's worked. When I've gone against my personal convictions, things usually haven't turned out well. Now I carefully tune in to how I feel.

That wasn't what my father gave me as a parting shot as I was walking out the door to go to college or something. It was modeling myself after him that brought me to that conclusion--after seeing how he got trapped from time to time when he was advised to do things he didn't feel right about and then lived to regret.

•

George Patton, Jr. (son of General George S. Patton): "Without God, there is neither life nor honor." That should look good in Playboy.

•

David Carradine (son of actor John Carradine): I don't recall a specific conversation but remember a bunch of things he said on different subjects.

On acting: "Acting is either completely opaque or completely transparent. Anything in between is like mud."

On Hollywood: "Be friendly to the janitor. Next week, he may be the producer."

On politics: "Thomas Jefferson once said, 'Revolution is the natural manure of democracy'--which is to say, if you want to live in a free country, you're going to have to put up with a lot of crap."

On TV: At the time he told me this, I was under contract to Universal. I was doing bits such as being the frightened eyes above the mask on the operating table and was having a difficult time--it all seemed unlike what I had been taught about acting. "The thing to remember, Son, is you're not acting, you're selling soap."

On ethics: "Never do anything you wouldn't want to be caught dead doing."

On the family: He told every one of us this repeatedly: "Stand up straight, Son. You're a Carradine."

•

Mark Harmon (son of Tom Harmon, football player and broadcaster): The most important thing my father told me was, "Failure shouldn't be feared. There's no harm in failure, only in not trying your best. If you fail and you're not trying your best, that's disgraceful."

I remember the first high school game my father ever saw me play. He was gone a lot, because he was broadcasting so much. I remember walking out to the car where he was waiting after the game and feeling pretty good. It had been a good game. He said, "So you think you played pretty well?"

I said, "Yes, sir."

He said, "Let me tell you, you're slow; you could play in the bathtub and never touch the sides. We're going to work your butt off this summer. Have a good evening, Son."

That summer was the first time I began to gain some maturity and realize what getting into shape was all about--both in mind and in body. As a result, football became more fun. My father says, "The difference between good and great is only a little extra effort."

I was 16 before I could beat my father in the 40-yard dash.

•

Douglas Fairbanks, JR. (son of actor Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.): My parents were divorced when I was eight or nine. I was raised by my mother and saw my father infrequently while I was growing up. When we did get together, we were both shy with each other. We were fond of each other but reluctant to demonstrate emotion. When I was a child, my father was quoted as saying, "I don't have much paternal feeling.... I'm like a lion with his cubs. My feelings are more fraternal." When we did become close, his attitude was more fraternal than paternal.

When I started acting, at 13, my father disapproved. He thought I should continue with my schooling and didn't realize I couldn't afford not to work, because my mother and I needed the money. However, when I was about 18 and had my first big part on tour, in Young Woodley, he sent over a red moroccan-leather-bound book, The Art of Acting, by Sir Henry Irving. Inside, he inscribed it with a quote from Hamlet: "Let your own discretion be your tutor." I guess that's the closest thing to advice that he ever gave me. I've often repeated the quote to my children. It meets a variety of occasions, but I think what he meant at the time was, "Be sure you're picking the right play."

We weren't really close, though, until I was in my 20s, during the last few years of his life. By then, I was my own man, standing on my own two feet and starting my own production company. I never asked him for a penny. I was mature for my years and our relationship was one of equals. We were more like brothers than like father and son. In his later years, in many ways, I became his father.

He was an influence in forming my tastes about fashion, though he never gave me advice about clothes. He was always fashion-conscious and I was indirectly affected by him. I remember going to the tailor and the shoemaker with him and later using the same people--insisting on paying for those things myself.

Other things I learned from him by watching had to do with his ideas on artistry as well as his concern for physical fitness. Although he smoked like a chimney, he was a complete teetotaler. He had promised his mother when he was eight that he would never drink and he kept that promise. I wasn't a teetotaler, but I've never been much of a drinker, either.

•

Christopher Lemmon (son of Jack Lemmon): I was a rebellious kid through my mid-teens. In fact, I was a real pain in the ass. I got speeding tickets. I hung around with the wrong people. Underneath, I was very sensitive and my intrinsic values were good ones, but the way I dealt with being Jack Lemmon's son was to try to be the center of attention so people would appreciate me. That meant doing anything short of a tap dance on the table in the middle of the school lunchroom. I think my fat her saw that and realized why I was doing it. But rather than lecture me, he helped me realize what was going on.

At one point, he almost cut the strings. He said, "OK, if you're going to be a big fuck-off, goodbye." I think that's one of the main reasons I came around.

I lived to impress him. At the same time, I was an idiot. Then all of a sudden, I became entirely different. What woke me up was fear. I realized there were such things as obligation and responsibility.

We had many long talks before I started the turnaround, during which he tried to steer me in the right direction. I remember long nights sitting at the bar. I'd end up crying, and we'd walk all around the house with each other. I was an awfully scared little kid. Somebody had to come along and pull me back to earth. And my father was the one who did it.

•

Barry Goldwater, Jr. (son of Senator Barry Goldwater): When I was growing up, my father was in World War Two. After that, he was involved in the family business in Phoenix, and then he was in Washington, D.C. As a result, a great deal of my growing up was spent away from my father, and most of his advice came in writing or over the phone. At the time, it was frustrating that he was not there personally. But I have his advice in writing, to which I can constantly refer. Often--even now--I pull his letters out and read them.

When we were young, he used to take us out of school a lot to explore the countryside--hiking, camping, shooting--mostly up in the Indian country of northern Arizona, Utah and Colorado.

I remember I was frustrated with school, was doing poorly and wanted to quit. I was in high school at the time and was going through the usual adjustment period. I wrote to him that I was unhappy at school and he wrote a letter that said:

I miss those days and nights in the forests and the canyons. Those are the pearls of my memory that I count as the futilities and frustrations of this life come as they must. What I told you once about learning more from nature than from school still holds. There is more strength and decency in one pine tree than in many people. There is cleanliness and good in the wind and the rain. There is in nature the constant presence of God. It's one reason I walk in the hills, for there one walks with Him and through Him one can impart one's troubles. Get your degree. There is not much future for those who do not pursue an education.

His political advice has always been to be honest and say what you're thinking, that you have only your integrity and your own life to account for. If you go through life an honest and fair person, you can't be dissatisfied with yourself. That advice he applied to politics, business, everything. He's always told me, "Be as honest and truthful as you possibly can. In the end, it will always be the best policy."

•

Arlo Guthrie (son of folk singer Woody Guthrie): I think now of how extraordinary the communication was between my father and myself. He died in 1967 and ill health made speech impossible during his last ten years; it was during those years that I grew up enough to be able to receive his fatherly advice.

My brother, my sister and I visited our father weekly at the hospital, where we would stand around surveying the strange circumstances of hospital life. It was during one of those visits that I first noticed that my father was trying to communicate telepathically with me, as all other roads of conversation seemed closed. Naturally, those telepathic conversations were quite secret, but I remember many such communications, though they were known only to me and my father. I have never, to this day, revealed the messages and the advice my father gave me, but perhaps the time has come to reveal some of the more trivial moments of our work together.

To begin with, it was difficult to converse, as we had to develop a telepathic language. At first, it was more like a game of charades. I had to guess his meaning.

One time, on the way to the hospital, we stopped off at a hamburger joint and decided to take some burgers and fries to my father. When we arrived and had settled down on the front lawn under a huge shade tree to eat, we noticed his frustration at his inability to speak. He obviously wanted to communicate a seriously important message and, despite all our efforts, we could not understand him. He was pointing to his burger and at the next instant pretending to ride a bicycle. Then back to the burger and again to the bicycle. This went on and on, and by late afternoon, we had come to no closer understanding. Finally, I closed my eyes, and images of extraordinary detail began to appear in my mind's eye.

Everyone was silent as I rose from the lawn and approached my father with his cold, uneaten hamburger on the ground in front of him. I peeled back the bun of the burger and nimbly removed layers of extras--cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and, finally, pickles. I took the pickles firmly in one hand and threw them as far as I could. A sense of serene joy filled my father's eyes as he began to eat, and I felt that we had finally begun to understand each other. He didn't want the pickles; he wanted to ride a bicycle. That's it.

"Still grinning, Groucho said, 'That'll teach you--never trust your father.' I got used to his humor."