Wise Up
Children
By David Bruce
June 23, 2008
• “My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own parenthood, but it didn’t because parenting can be learned only by people who have no children.” — Bill Cosby.
• Marilyn Harris played the little girl whom Frankenstein’s Monster drowned in the movie “Frankenstein,” starring Boris Karloff. In the brief scene, part of which was later edited out, the Monster throws the little girl into the lake, thinking that she will float like a flower. Two takes were needed for the scene, but little Marilyn didn’t want to be thrown into the lake a second time. Therefore, the director, James Whale, promised to give her anything she wanted if she did the scene a second time. She agreed, and she asked for a dozen hard-boiled eggs. A week later, Mr. Whale sent her two dozen hard-boiled eggs.
• The movie “The Sound of Music” is about the escape of Maria Von Trapp and her young children from the Nazis in Austria to the safety of Switzerland. Eventually, they made their way to Vermont and opened an inn. As a child, Michael Thomas Ford got to see the Von Trapps. He expected Maria Von Trapp to be a young woman carrying a guitar, so he was shocked when he saw a very old woman without a guitar. The first thing he said to her was, “Why aren’t you dead yet?”
• Even at age 6, Olympic gold medalist Shannon Miller was a master at saving time. She used to wear her leotard underneath her clothing at school to save time dressing for gymnastics practice after school. This trick gave her a few more minutes of precious TV-watching time. (Her parents didn’t know she was doing this until they received her school photographs and saw the sleeves of her leotards poking out underneath the sleeves of her dress.)
• Steve Allen and his wife and son were in a limo in Tokyo, Japan, when they were trapped in an anti-American demonstration led by Japanese students who chanted, “Yankee, go home.” Mr. Allen’s 6-year-old son, Bill, rolled a window down, then began chanting in sync with the Japanese students, “We’re go-ing home Thurs-day. We’re go-ing home Thurs-day.”
• As a young tomboy, gymnast Nadia Comaneci enjoyed climbing trees. Her grandmother, exasperated, once asked her, “Why on earth do you spend all your time climbing trees?” Young Nadia replied, “Because they’re here to be climbed.” However, Nadia did grow annoyed when a young boy called up to her, “Hey, Comaneci, want some twigs to build your nest with?”
• “Since becoming a parent, I, who once dreamed of tooling around Monte Carlo in my Aston-Martin, breaking the hearts of wealthy contessas while insouciantly playing baccarat, have purposely lost more games of Candy Land to my kid than Brando threw fights in ‘On the Waterfront.’” — Dennis Miller, “Ranting Again.”
• At age 2, Frances Gumm — the future Judy Garland — sang two songs (“Jingle Bells” and “When I Take My Sugar to Tea”) at a theater where her father was performing. She liked the applause so much that she wouldn’t leave the stage, and finally her father had to bodily pick her up and carry her off.
• Comedian Bob Newhart once owned an ancient Greek vase that he loved to touch. Unfortunately, his children also loved to touch it. Ironically, this ancient Greek vase that had been unbroken for over 2,000 years lasted only about two years in Mr. Newhart’s house before his children broke it.
• Jerry Clower’s grandson, Jayree, came to visit his grandparents for a while, and his grandmother, Homerline, told him a couple of times to pick up his toys. Jayree ignored her for a while, then he put his hands on his hips and asked Mr. Clower, “Grandaddy, how have you lived with her all these years?”
• The grandparents of J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, owned a grocery store. Therefore, after the store had closed for the day, young J.K. and her sister were able to play “grocery store” with real food — as long as they put everything back when they were done playing.
• Soprano Geraldine Farrar started singing in public at a very young age— at age 3 she performed her first song for a church concert. When she had finished singing, she went to the front of the platform and asked, to the delight of the audience, “Did I do it well, mamma?”
• When United States gymnast Hollie Vise was 12 years old, she told her mother, “When I was young, I always wanted to be in the Olympics.” By the way, Ms. Vise is a serious gymnast. She even has a balance beam (one that is low to the floor) in her parents’ dining room.
• After the Nazis occupied Denmark in World War II, King Christian X continued to ride his horse in public. Seeing the king ride his horse alone, a Nazi soldier asked a young Danish boy, “Where is his bodyguard?” The boy replied, “All of Denmark is his bodyguard.”
• Here are my favorite jokes for 5-year-olds: 1) How can you tell whether an elephant has been in your refrigerator? Look for elephant footprints in the margarine. 2) What’s black, dangerous, and lives in a tree? A crow with a machine gun.
• Olympic gold medalist diver Pat McCormack grew up in a household with an older brother as a favorite companion. She says that she didn’t realize she was a girl until she was playing football at age 10 and heard someone say, “Block that dame!”
• Sammy Davis, Jr., started performing as a 4-year-old child with his uncle. To get around the child labor laws, his uncle had Sammy wear blackface, and he also told everyone that Sammy was actually a 44-year-old midget.
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