THE FUNNIEST PEOPLE IN FAMILIES, VOLUME 3: 250 ANECDOTES

By David Bruce

Dedicated with Love to Randy and Rosa

Many thanks to Ed Venrick for the front cover.

Copyright 2007 by Bruce D. Bruce

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Cover Photograph

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The Funniest People in Families, Volume 3: 250 Anecdotes

Chapter 1: From Activism to Clothing

Activism

• Eileen Daffern was 93 years old in 2007, but that did not stop her from being an activist, especially when it came to resisting nuclear weapons. She says, “The great challenge is to make people realize the power they have to change the world. It can be changed, you know.” She is healthy for her age, she inherited good genes from her parents, and she takes pride in her appearance. When her mother was 90 years old, Eileen saw her looking at her appearance in the mirror. Eileen says, “Her gestures were those of a young girl preening herself. ... I, too, look in the mirror.” In fact, when she sees photographs that make her look “too ancient,” she gleefully destroys them.

• In 1999, Duke University was not known for tolerance of homosexuality; instead, homosexuality was virtually invisible on campus. This bothered Lucas Schaefer, Leila Nesson Wolfrum, and a few of their friends, and they decided to take action. Figuring that the problem was not outright discrimination against gays and lesbians, but rather a refusal to acknowledge their existence, they designed and ordered a T-shirt that bore the message “gay? fine by me.” Soon, lots of people were wearing these T-shirts, thus acknowledging both that homosexuals exist and that lots of people were OK with that fact.

• In 1912, Margaret Higgins Sanger wrote about such topics as conception and sexually transmitted diseases in a series of articles titled “What Every Girl Should Know.” These articles were published in the radical newspaper The Call. Unfortunately, the United States Postal Service confiscated the issue of The Call that included the article on sexually transmitted diseases. The next issue of The Call included another article on “What Every Girl Should Know.” However, the text of that article stated, “NOTHING, by order of the Post-Office Department.”

• In 1982, Howard Zinn, the author of A People’s History of the United States, and his wife were marching in a huge anti-nuclear protest in New York. The scene, of course, was very crowded and very confusing. While marching in the protest, Mr. and Mrs. Zinn looked up and saw that the banner they were marching under bore this message: “Lesbians From Hoboken Against Nuclear War.” They laughed.

• In 1968, the New York Radical Women protested the Miss America pageant because they regarded it as being sexist. The activists filled a trash can with objects that they believed oppressed women, including bras, girdles, stiletto heels, and tweezers, and they chose—and put a crown on—their own, alternative Miss America: a live sheep.

Advertising

• Great advertising slogans appear in ordinary life, if only someone is around to recognize them. Here are three examples, all from the first half of the 20^th century. The first example: A sign painter was working on a billboard advertising Camels cigarettes when a man bummed a cigarette from him. The sign painter smoked Camels cigarettes, and so he gave one to the man, who enthusiastically proclaimed, “I’d walk a mile for a Camel.” The sign painter liked what he heard and passed it on to his boss, saying that it might be a great slogan to use on a billboard. The second example: J.W. Packard founded the company that manufactured the Packard automobile. A man once wrote him, asking him to provide proof that the car was dependable. Mr. Packard wrote the man a letter and gave him the name and address of a man in his area who owned a Packard. The letter included a sentence that became a famous advertising slogan: “Ask the man who owns one.” The third example: Harry and David Rosenberg grew pears in Oregon and hired an advertising company that created much new business for them. In fact, business was so good that the advertising company suggested to David that he and Harry buy a full-page ad in Fortune magazine. David thought for a moment and said, “Imagine Harry and me advertising our pears in Fortune!” As you would by now expect, that sentence became the headline of the full-page advertisement in Fortune.

• When children’s book author/illustrator Tomie dePaola was growing up in the 1940s, Burma Shave signs were popular. These were a series of rhyming signs designed to be read one after another by people riding in a car, and the last sign always said, “BURMA SHAVE.” Usually, the signs were humorous, although some also contained a serious message. One series that young Tomie saw said, “DON’T STICK YOUR ELBOW / OUT SO FAR / IT MIGHT GO HOME / IN ANOTHER CAR / BURMA SHAVE.”

• When Whoopi Goldberg’s daughter gave birth to a girl, Ms. Goldberg knew that the tabloids would be very eager to print photographs of her granddaughter. She wanted the first photographs made available to the public to be tasteful, so when the Gap asked her to do an advertisement, she suggested that they use a photograph of her and her family—her mother, her daughter, and her granddaughter—in the advertisement.

• Clever but misleading (and unethical) product promotion has been with us for a long time. In the 1950s, the makers of Heineken beer wanted to get established in New York City, so they hired a group of 30 college students to go into bars, ask for Heineken, and if it wasn’t available, to leave the bar en masse. Bars quickly stocked Heineken beer.

• Darrell Waltrip is a race-car driver who once was sponsored by a beer company. However, after a mother complained to him that he was giving the message to children that alcohol and driving go together, he quickly changed sponsors. (Now children can learn that driving and laundry detergent—his new sponsor—go together.)

Animals

• Police officers in small towns with little crime sometimes come up with creative ways to keep from being bored. In Fort Fairfield, Maine (population 4,300 at the time of this incident), a police officer discovered a chicken roosting on his police car. The police officer arrested the chicken for such crimes as criminal trespass, criminal mischief, resisting an officer, indecency (the chicken was naked), and littering. On the official crime report, the police officer wrote down the chicken’s name as Cee Little. Later, the police officer explained, “It started out as a joke and shouldn’t have gone as far as it did, but in a town like Fort Fairfield, you have to do something to keep from going crazy.” (The day following the arrest, the chicken was released into the custody of a person who liked to eat eggs.)

• Guardian columnist Michele Hanson calls the British Guy Fawkes celebration “dog-breakdownseason” because the fireworks scare her dogs so badly that they are unwilling to relieve themselves outside. In 2007, her dogs cried and whined all Guy Fawkes weekend. They wanted to go outside to relieve themselves, but each time they tried, fireworks would go off and they would run back inside the house. Ms. Hanson complained about “no sleep for me, of course, because of the whining, farting dogs, running up and down the stairs, begging to go to the toilet. Again and again I tottered to the back door, opened it—BANG—they chickened out and stood quivering on the doorstep. All night for three nights. I am a wreck.”

• Helen, the sister of opera singer Mary Garden, was very good with animals. Each morning, she would load a basket up with meat and cheese, then walk down the streets of her village, giving each cat and dog in the village a piece of food. A garage in the village had a ferocious dog fenced up, and Helen was the only person who would approach it. The owner of the garage told her, “Madame, if anybody steals anything from my garage, I’ll know it is you because nobody else in the village could pass that gate and live.”

• Children’s book author Gary Paulsen and his wife, Ruth, once bought a pig to raise for food. Knowing that they intended to butcher it, they didn’t want to get emotionally close to the pig, and so they didn’t name it, but just called it “Pig.” The plan didn’t work. Pig became one of the Paulsens’ many pets, and when Pig died in old age, weighing almost 500 pounds, he died the way a pig would wish to die—with his snout in a feeding trough.

• A very famous advertising illustration—and trademark—of the first half of the 20^th century showed a dog listening to an early Victor Talking Machine. The slogan that went with the illustration was this: “His Master’s Voice.” The person who created the illustration and slogan was an English painter named Francis Barraud, who once saw Nipper, his dog, sitting in front of the horn of the talking machine, listening to the voices that came from it.

• When science fiction writer Anne McCaffrey was a child, she owned a cat named Thomas which she dressed in a doll’s clothes and pushed around in a stroller. Thomas so loved Anne that he would put up with this treatment for a while, but eventually he would jump out of the stroller, shake off the doll’s clothes, and start acting like a cat again.

• War has many consequences, not all of them obvious. During World War II, so many British cats became casualties of war that the rat and mice populations started growing out of hand. Therefore, many American cats were shipped to Britain.

Art

• Stand-up comedian Margaret Cho married Al Ridenour in 2003. Mr. Ridenour used to be a member of the Los Angeles Cacophony Society, a group that engages in performance art and happenings. For example, they once walked down Hollywood Boulevard. Not so unusual, you say? True, but as they walked, they picked up pieces of litter and glued them to their bodies. On another occasion, they satirized the attention given to fad toys by creating some very heavy teddy bears they named the Cement Cuddlers. They then smuggled the teddy bears onto the shelves at Toys “R” Us and pretended to be frenzied customers of the teddy bears—as frenzied as the Tickle Me Elmo customers when that was a fad toy.

• Some people whom you would not expect to appreciate art learn to appreciate art. During the Great Depression, the United States government paid artists to create works of art. For example, in 1936 Lucienne Bloch created a mural titled Cycle of a Woman’s Life for New York City’s Women’s House of Detention. The inmates there were tough, but Ms. Bloch discovered that they responded to the children she painted in her mural, giving them names and even “adopting” them.

• Alberto Vargas, from Peru, became renowned for his depictions of Vargas girls—all of whom were impossibly beautiful and idealized women. When Mr. Vargas was asked why he seemed to create only works of art that featured beautiful women, he replied, “Show me something more beautiful than a beautiful woman, and then I’ll go and paint it!”

Baseball

• Professional baseball player Bobby Bonds sometimes watched Barry, his son, play baseball in high school; however, he would not watch from the grandstands, being afraid that his celebrity would take attention away from the players on the field. Instead, he would park his car in some trees beyond the outfield, and then watch from there. Of course, he would give his son criticism and advice after the game. One thing he didn’t like was that Barry would sometimes get angry after striking out. Bobby told Barry, “Throwing down your helmet is not going to get you a hit.” Of course, Barry became a great professional baseball player like his father, Bobby, who had at least 30 steals and at least 30 home runs in five seasons—the first professional baseball player to do that. Bobby once said, “Know what I’m proudest of? That I’m now known as Barry Bonds’ father.”

• Back when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn, Danny, the seven-year-old son of Dodger pitcher Carl Erskine, made his Little League team as an outfielder. At first his father thought that Danny might have had an edge since he was the son of a Dodger, but Danny’s coach said that Danny had earned his spot on the team: “He catches fly balls better than anybody I’ve got.” Later, the Dodgers announced that they were moving to Los Angeles. Of course, lots of people in Brooklyn were upset, including Danny’s coach, but Danny’s coach was upset for a different reason than other people: “I’m going to lose the best center fielder in the league.”

• Fans of baseball understand the words “Tinker to Evers to Chance.” They were a famed team of Chicago Cubs infielders who made many double plays when shortstop Joe Tinker stopped the ball, then threw it to second baseman Johnny Evers, who then threw it to first baseman Frank Chance. Fans of baseball include entire families, of course. When sportswriter Steve Jacobson was growing up, and his father passed the potatoes to him, and he then passed them to his mother, his mother would say, “Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

Bathrooms

• When children’s book writer Tomie dePaola was in the second grade, he often got a ride home after school with the father of Jeannie, a friend at school. However, often Tomie dawdled and missed his ride and had to walk home. When this happened, he sometimes needed to go to the bathroom, so he would knock at the door of the home of another friend, Carol, whose mother would let him use their bathroom. One day, Carol’s mother was not at home, so young Tomie wet his pants and walked home with wet, uncomfortable corduroy pants. His mother simply cleaned him up when he got home, but Buddy, his older brother, laughed and told him, “Just go in the bushes.”

• Maureen Stapleton was afraid of flying, and on a cross-country trip she sat next to friend and fellow actor Eli Wallach and held his hand. At one point he told her that he had to go to the restroom, and she told him, “All right. Let’s go.” She held his hand as she walked with him to the restroom, then waited outside. When he left the restroom, she held his hand and walked with him back to their seats. She then told him, “Buckle up—and no more bathroom privileges for you.”

• Some children are very honest and direct in what they say, and some children know anatomical words to use when speaking honestly and directly. When Constance Ledlow’s daughter was in the second grade, she raised her hand to ask permission to go to the bathroom. The teacher asked what she needed to do: number one or number two? Ms. Ledlow’s daughter replied, “Neither, my vagina itches and I need to scratch it, then wash my hands.”

Children

• Quaker humorist Tom Mullen once took his family to Old Town, a section of Chicago that he knew as an artists’ hangout, but that unfortunately had been invaded by strip clubs, porno theaters, prostitutes, pimps, and johns. His seven-year-old daughter, Ruthie, was all eyes, staring through the car window and asking embarrassing questions such as “Why isn’t that woman wearing any underwear?” and “What does ‘l-u-s-t’ mean?” Eventually, she asked, “How come all those men are going into that place?” Mr. Mullen replied, “Ask your mother, dear”—a reply that he admits may possibly be grounds for divorce. However, his wife gave an honest answer: “Those men are buying tickets to see someone’s bare bottom.” Ruthie asked, “Why would anyone pay money to see somebody’s bare bottom?” Indeed. An advertisement asks, “What kind of man reads Playboy?” Mr. Mullen answers that question: “Witty, sophisticated types who pay to see somebody’s bare bottom.”

• Grover Dale started out poor, but became a millionaire through dance; however, he became involved in dance through accident. A neighbor wanted her son to have a companion in his tap-dance class, so she offered to pay for nine-year-old Grover’s lessons if he would attend the class with her son. Mr. Dale says, “If that woman had not come to my house that day, I don’t think I would have ever stepped foot inside a dance studio.” Another woman who greatly helped him was Lillian Jasper, the dance teacher. He enjoyed dancing and had obvious talent for it, but when the other kids started teasing him by calling him Mr. Tap Toe, he was ready to quit dancing. Fortunately, Ms. Jaspers told him, “Don’t quit! I’ll pay you to assist me.” She paid him $9 a week, and if not for that money, he would have given up dance. Of course, Mr. Dale became a dancer on Broadway and later published and edited L.A. Dance and Fitness.

• Two of the creators of the TV sitcom Cheers were brothers Glen and Les Charles. Glen was five years old when his brother was born, and he did not know what to think of the new addition to the family. Glen says, “I just looked at him, not sure what he was. Here was this little blob. I didn’t know what to think of him.” Later, he figured out what to do with him. For example, when he got a set of bow and arrows as a gift, he let his little brother be the settler in a game of Western warfare and shot arrows at him. (Please exercise more caution than Glen did—Les still has a scar on his hand from that game.) One day, they made lemonade to sell. To make sure that the lemonade was all right, they tasted it. Unfortunately, they did not sell much lemonade. A neighborhood kid told everyone who came by, “Don’t buy it. They already drank out of the pitcher.”

• What should we call the children of biracial couples? A 1984 article in Newsweek called them “Children of the Rainbow.” Audra Johnson has a white father, and a black/Cherokee mother. Audra says, “If anyone ever asks, and a few people have—whether I’m black or white—I just tell them I’m a chocolate and vanilla swirl!” Chandree also has parents of different races, and whenever someone asks her why her skin is so dark, she tells them, “I was out in the sun too long!” One summer, Chandree was out in the sun a lot and one of her arms tanned darker than her other arm. Therefore, she says, “So when somebody asked me about my color, I held up one arm like this and said, ‘This is my black side, and the other is my white side.’ Then I told them my dad’s black and my mom’s white, so that makes me mixed.”

• Sarah Michelle Gellar, an Emmy Award winner for her role in All My Children and a Saturn Award winner as the star of TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was discovered at age four when she started singing in a restaurant. An agent who happened to be in the restaurant asked her, “Do you want to be on TV?” Sarah’s mother didn’t think that the agent was serious, but little Sarah was intrigued. She had recently learned her address and telephone number in case she ever got lost or was kidnapped, so she gave the agent that information. A week later, the agent called, and after some persuading, Sarah’s mother agreed to let her audition for TV commercials and roles in movies.

• Even before she could print letters, Joan Lowery Nixon knew she wanted to write. Sometimes she would tell her mother, who encouraged creativity, “I have a poem. Write it down.” Later, as an adult struggling writer, she bought a pair of bookends for the books she would write and placed them together with this note in between them: “Watch this space grow!” Over 100 published books later, she needed many more than two bookends. (Her friend and fellow writer Mary Blount Christian bought a trash can when she started writing seriously—to hold all of her rejection slips! Today, Ms. Christian has also published over 100 books.

• Charles M. Schulz, creator of the comic strip Peanuts, grew up among some original relatives. Just two days after Charles was born, an uncle gave him the nickname that became his for the rest of his life. The uncle named him “Sparky,” after the horse Spark Plug, which had just become a character in the comic strip Barney Google. As a young boy, Sparky practiced hockey against another relative with originality: his grandmother. In the basement, he attempted to hit tennis balls with a hockey stick into a goal guarded by his grandmother. This was no mismatch. Sparky says, “She made a lot of great saves.”

• Matt Damon, who starred in and won an Oscar for writing (with friend Ben Affleck) Good Will Hunting, was forced to be creative when he was a child because of a lack of toys. His mother disliked the violent toys that were and are prevalent in modern society, so she wouldn’t buy such toys as cap guns and light sabers for Matt and Kyle, his older brother. Therefore, they had to create their own fun. Kyle would make some costumes, and he and Matt would dress in them and act out stories. Matt, of course, became an actor and screenwriter, while Kyle became an artist and sculptor.

• Yo-Yo Ma started playing music early, but he did not seem to care for the violin. His parents wondered why he didn’t like the violin, and young Yo-Yo told them, “I don’t like the sound violins make—I want a big instrument!” His father took him to an instrument shop, where Yo-Yo found a cello made for children. To try out the cello, Yo-Yo couldn’t sit on a chair—all of them were too big for him. Therefore, he sat on three big telephone books. Of course, he got the cello and today he is a world-renowned cellist.

• When Ralph Nader and his siblings were growing up, the local library ran into a problem because children were not returning the books they had borrowed. The local McDonald’s started a promotion to get the books back by offering a free hamburger to each child who returned his or her library books. Ralph’s mother, Rose, opposed this promotion. She felt that children ought not to be bribed to do the right thing. Ralph and his siblings returned their library books without getting a free hamburger.

• As a child, Dorothy “Dot” Richardson was a ball of frenetic energy. In the days before laws required small children to ride in car seats, she traveled with her parents from Orlando to California. Because she constantly crawled around in the car, eventually her parents placed her in a box to keep her relatively immobile. According to her mother, “Dorothy never walked as a baby—she ran.” The exercise paid off—Dot won gold medals in women’s softball at the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games.

• Cheerleaders can be role models for young children. For example, the first graders at a Catholic school idolized the cheerleaders who were in the eighth grade. In fact, at one recess the first graders imitated the older cheerleaders. One first grader led the chants: “Give me a B … give me a Q … give me an R … what’s that spell?” Since none of the first graders knew how to spell yet (and since the letters in fact did not spell a word), one first grader answered, “I don’t know!”

• As a child, Jackie Bouvier spoke the truth. One day, she and Lee, her little sister, got in an elevator, which was operated by a man with some white hair standing straight up from his forehead. Lee said politely to the elevator operator, “You look pretty well today.” But Jackie said, “That’s not true, Lee. You know very well he looks like a chicken.” Later, she became famous as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, a woman who closely observed the rules of etiquette.

• Francis Crick was born on June 8, 1916. Shortly afterward, his sister carried him—at the request of their mother—up to the roof of their home. Why? This act symbolized that young Francis would someday reach the top—and he did reach the top of his profession. Working together, friends James Watson and Mr. Crick discovered the structure of DNA, for which in 1962 they won a Nobel Prize.

• Comedian 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, “Yan-kee, go home.” Mr. Allen’s six-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.”

• Eric Gregg used to umpire in the Dominican Republic, where the poorer kids made sneaking in an art form. They waited until the national anthem of the Dominican Republic was being played, then swarmed over the fence, because the people standing up made hiding easier and because they knew that the police would not chase them while the national anthem was being played.

• When dancer Ann Miller was only 15 years old—everyone thought she was 18—she had her first Hollywood date in 1938 when Hermes Pan took her to the Academy Awards. Because she wanted to be sophisticated, she put on lots of makeup, but Mr. Pan looked at her and absolutely refused to take her to the Awards until she washed all that “junk” off her face.

• When Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, was nine years old, he started collecting Buck Rogers comic strips. However, when some schoolmates started teasing him about his collection, he tore it up. He felt bad about doing this, and he cried—and he decided to follow his bliss from then on and not worry about what other people thought of him.

• As a student, Arthur Mitchell once happily danced a Military Tap Salute at his public school; unfortunately, midway through the number, he forgot his routine. He handled it well. He simply told the audience, “You’ll have to excuse me. It could happen to anyone. It’s because I’m not a professional.” (Later, of course, he became a professional.)

• Michelle Trachtenberg, young co-star of TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, knew at an early age that she wanted to be an actress. When she was three years old, she watched a TV commercial in which a little girl braided Barbie’s hair. She told her parents that she wanted to be on television, and, she says, “I wouldn’t move until I was told I could be.”

• One of the closest Presidential elections in history took place when John F. Kennedy defeated Richard M. Nixon. Even after Mr. Kennedy went to bed and awoke the morning after election day, no one was sure who had won—except for Caroline, Mr. Kennedy’s young daughter, who greeted him with, “Good morning, Mr. President.”

• Children love to be read to. When the young grandson of young people’s author Judy Blume learned how to read (on his own!), he tried to keep it secret because he was afraid that no one would read to him anymore. Of course, Judy and others reassured him and kept on reading to him, including every night before he went to sleep.

• Many dancers got started in dance for the same reason that Martha Graham dancer Jane Dudley did. She was an energetic young girl, and her mother hoped that dance lessons would use up some of that abundant energy. In fact, when Jane was a little girl, her mother’s nickname for her was “Janie Wiggle.”

• When she was a child, Merrill Ashley took the study of ballet seriously and wore her hair in a bun even at school. Her school newspaper once made a list of notable personalities among the students, including Miss Popularity, Miss Congeniality, and Miss Hospitality. Young Merrill was Miss Bun.

• When Jackie Bouvier (later known as Jackie Kennedy Onassis) was very young, she wandered away from her nanny and baby sister in New York City’s Central Park. A police officer asked her, “Are you lost, little girl?” Young Jackie replied, “No, but my nurse and baby sister are.”

• Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury loved children, and children loved him. One little girl heard that he was coming for a visit, so she ran home and shouted, “Mother, I want my face washed and a clean apron on, for Bishop Asbury is coming and I am sure he will hug me up.”

• In his book More Funny People, comedian Steve Allen tells a story about a time when David, his then-four-year-old son, caused trouble and Mr. Allen asked him, “What do you think you are anyway, a little baby?” His son replied, “I’m not a little baby. I’m a big baby.”

• When he was a child, the parents of comedian Chris Rock took in foster children, and they treated them like their own children. One day, young Chris came home, and a strange kid in the yard told him, “I’m your brother.” Chris asked, “Who are you?”

• Each morning, Linda Pace and her young children prayed. One morning, her three-year-old son prayed, “God, please help Sissy not to suck her thumb.” Hearing that, Sissy prayed, “And, God, please help my brother to stop reminding me.”

• J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, was born in South Africa. Shortly after he was born, a family servant “borrowed” him so he could show him to his friends and neighbors—they had never seen a white baby.

Christmas

• Brendan, the son of Beth Quinn, a columnist for The Times Herald-Record in the state of New York, had a Blankie when he was little. He carried it around and slept with it for a long time, then he kept it on the floor by his bed, and finally he stored it in his closet. Occasionally, Beth would find it and say, “Oh, look what I found. Blankie.” Brendan would reply, “I know. Leave him there.” Beth did. When Brendan was eight years old, he met Josie, his half-sister, and they bonded quickly over a shared love of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, the Smurfs, and their Blankies. Later, Josie moved away, and Brendan and Beth found out that older children at her bus stop were picking on her. Upset, Brendan took action. He cut out a square from Blankie and then had Beth send it and a Smurf doll to Josie along with this message: “Here is a Smurf and part of Blankie. Keep these with you at the bus stop so no one can hurt you.” Apparently, it worked, as Josie grew up to be an adult. For Christmas of 2006, Beth restored Blankie—but left the hole created when Brendan cut out the square—to make a gift for Brendan’s soon-to-be-born daughter, Devon Elizabeth.

• While Maria Tallchief was dancing the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy, she was annoyed by a child who was playing the part of the Prince because he kept critiquing her performance out loud on stage, telling the little girl who was playing the part of Marie, “She’s kind of off tonight.” Therefore, as soon as Ms. Tallchief’s back was to the audience, she looked him in the eyes and told him, “Shut up!” Many years later, choreographer Eliot Field brought his dance troupe to Chicago, where Ms. Tallchief had a meeting with him. He asked her, “You don’t hate me?” Ms. Tallchief was surprised by the question until he explained, “I’m the little boy you told to shut up during The Nutcracker 23 years ago!”

• When Jan Berenstain, co-creator of the Berenstain Bears books with Stan, her husband, was a little girl, she had a baby doll with a delicate china head. The baby was dressed in a christening gown, and sometimes Jan pretended that she was christening her doll. Unfortunately, when she played a little too rough with her doll, she would have to wait until Christmas to get another delicate china head for her doll.

• Felia Doubrovska taught at George Balanchine’s School for American Ballet for 30 years, so she taught many famous dancers, among them Allegra Kent. For Christmas, Allegra once gave Ms. Doubrovska a present, who reminded her of the school’s rule: “No presents for teachers.” Allegra, however, ran away, saying, “There are no rules for me.”

Clothing

• Henning Mankell grew up in Sweden, but he learned the importance of dignity in Africa. Mozambique was devastated by civil war during the 1980s and until 1992. Mr. Mankell visited the north of that country in November of 1990. The country had little food, and many people had been killed or crippled. However, he was impressed by a young man whom he saw wearing rags. The young man had no shoes or even sandals, so he had gotten dye from the earth and painted shoes on his feet. Mr. Mankell writes that “in doing so he boosted his awareness that, despite all his misery and destitution, he was a human being with dignity.”

• Scientists engaged in genetic research occasionally spent time at Wood’s Hole, Massachusetts, where they both relaxed and talked science. Some scientists there, including friends James Watson and Francis Crick, who discovered the structure of DNA, for which they won a Nobel Prize in 1962, formed an RNA Tie Club that consisted of the top 20 RNA scientists in the world. Each member of the club wore a tie decorated with an illustration of the particular amino-acid chain that had been “given” to them when they joined the club.

• Mina Shaughnessy loved fine clothing, and she dressed extremely well while teaching at CUNY, although her students often faced extreme financial hardships. Critic Irving Howe once met her after she had just finished teaching a class, and he asked her if her students were ever put off by her stunning clothing. She replied, “But, Irving, my students know I dress up for them.”