“Oh Daddy, you wouldn’t do that….would you?” When the teenage boys got ‘wheels’ and started asking my daughters for dates, I threatened to require each boy to complete a questionnaire so I could check his credentials. I didn’t. But #3 Daughter never forgot. And when she accepted his invitation, she helped Jack Wood write the questionnaire he presented when they announced their engagement. Questionnaire for the Father of the Bride Asset Value of Daughter 1.
Month: November 2018
Silent Cal’s Press Conference
The recent Presidential press conference brouhaha reminds me of another presidential press conference. A prominent journalist shared this story during a lunch of journalists and journalism teachers at the University of North Carolina campus in the 1980s. I forget the journalist’s name, who worked for a national publication, but have not forgotten his historical description of one of President Calvin Coolidge’s press conferences. “Silent Cal” Coolidge may have been the first President to hold
When the Boys Honk
One of the two pretty daughters told me this story. Dressed in their spring dresses, the Grocer’s two daughters waited for their dates to arrive. When the two guys parked their jalopy at the curb, they honked the horn. Not once, but four or five times. The daughters didn’t move from their living room chairs. But their father marched to the front porch. Then yelled loud enough to be heard at the Abilene high school, four blocks away.
Missed America
’Twas the 1963 Saturday night Miss America contest on live TV. We were viewing three miles outside Abilene, our West Texas home, when my three daughters wanted to disown me. Not only did the 13-year-old huff away from the television set, she also led her two younger sisters, ages 12 and 11, in a scornful walkout. My failing was showing our jackrabbit symbol on the television station I managed. Or, specifically, NOT showing