Albert Einstein's great-grandson doing a commercial? Yeah, well he did a few years ago. This particular auto manufacturer was showing that a new generation of drivers was choosing their make of car; not just their fathers and grandfathers. And he would go, "This is not my father's ___." No, I'm not going to name the car. They've got to pay for that. No, we don't do any commercials here.
I was ten years old, and I had one of the most frightening moments of my life. I was out with some of my friends about my age in Lake Michigan, and for some reason I panicked in the water and I started to go under. I can still remember it as if it was today. I really, really felt like I was going to die. Now, unfortunately, my friends didn't take my cries for help seriously at first. "Oh, there's Ron! He's clowning around! He's goofing off!" I guess that's the price you pay for being a clown, which I guess I was...and am. Well, I began to flail around; I was desperately trying to save myself. Someone finally saw me. I mean, they saw I was really in trouble and they came to my rescue. And when they did, I quit thrashing, I quit trying to swim, and because I did they were able to rescue me. You know why? I quit trying to rescue myself!
Nine years old and oh, so proud; proud of the gift I had just bought for my mom for Mother's Day. I picked it out myself. I paid for it with my own allowance. And I ruined it all by myself. It was a two-carnation corsage with a plastic bumblebee. I still remember the bumblebee; it was really cool. I was pushing the speed limit on my bicycle with the white florist box perched on my handlebars. Until I hit a bump and it went flying. I ran over my Mother's Day present. The flowers were crushed and so was I.
You get pretty immune to the scenery on the roads that you travel all the time. There's an entrance to an Interstate where I used to live in New Jersey that was like that for me. I used that ramp all the time, and there's a sharp bend in it and there are these big SLOW signs, and I was used to those. There were signs with these black arrows against the yellow backdrop that point out that sudden bend to the left, and I hardly ever noticed those.
I've been to South Africa several times. I love those accents, but not when they're talking about an inspirational sports icon killing his girlfriend. There's been a lot of fog around exactly what happened, but what we do know is that South Africa's Olympic hero admittedly shot his girlfriend four times. Now, he says accidentally and the police say on purpose.
Hollywood is kind of a world of illusions. If you don't know it already, well you learn it when you tour a major studio. I did that once and I got to see where movies and TV series were filmed. You find out, for example, that when you see a man speeding along in a car he might be sitting still on the set. They put in all the scenery that makes it look like he's moving, later - behind him.
This might come as a surprise to you, but athletes often have egos as big as their biceps. Now, one way I observed that is that I used to take a lot of pictures of our local high school football team. And I would ask my youngest son, "What happens when we tell the players that we're going to show some of those pictures at an event?" And he said, "Well, instead of three people coming, about 300 come." "Why is that?" "All because they all want to see themselves on the big screen." That would happen. One of the fellows would come up to me afterwards and he'd say, "You didn't have me in any of the pictures Mr. Hutchcraft."
We kept two special remembrances of our wedding. One was a piece of wedding cake that we froze; the other was a recording of the ceremony. The recording was a much better idea than the cake. We ate the cake on our first wedding anniversary. You've heard of chocolate cake; this was more like chalk cake. Uh-huh, bad idea. But oh, the recording, now that was a great idea. In fact, often on our wedding anniversary we have replayed it. We relive that wonderful day that our marriage began. I know some couples go beyond that. They actually dust off the old wedding dress and reconvene what's left of the wedding party, and do it again on some milestone anniversary. Hey, it's good for a couple to remember that wedding day. It's good to remember where it all began isn't it? In any important relationship a trip back to the beginning can rekindle the spark.
Poor ol' Charlie Brown; staring into his mailbox on Valentine's Day, hoping to find a Valentine. He never does. And when he yells "hello" into the mailbox, the only answer he gets back is his own echo. "Happy Valentine's Day!" Man, that's an oxymoron for Charlie, and for lots of real-life folks.
Over our lifetime I did a lot of the driving. But this time, I was the passenger and I was being driven to the airport from a speaking assignment. It's a good thing I was the passenger. I glanced over at this little amusement area by the side of the road. We just zipped by it, but I saw a water slide, a miniature golf course, and then I was really startled by what I saw. There was a giant, plastic water faucet and it was hanging, suspended above the ground with water falling out of it. It was not attached to anything, or so you could see it anyway. There was no water source anywhere nearby; it was just hanging there.
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