I blame my dad…

Rather, I CREDIT my dad for the gift (some might call it a curse) of my corny, silly sense of humor. I’ll share a story that will make clear what it is exactly that I inherited. One summer when I was about 9 or 10, my younger cousins came to visit us for a few days, and dad had a brilliant plan to entertain them, along with me, my brother and sister. Evel Knievel was popular at the time; he was a motorcycle stunt rider who made famous jumps over cars, hotel fountains, canyons- and so my dad decided he was going to jump over our above ground swimming pool- on a minibike. He leaned a wooden plank against the side of the pool to serve as a ramp, donned his official “stuntman” costume, which consisted of my mom’s Russian Cossack hat and her winter scarf (remember, middle of summer). It was a site to behold- he looked completely absurd; he was way too large for that small bike, plus the added visual of the goofy hat and scarf blowing in the wind- sheer comedy! We kids were giddy with excitement to witness this thrilling jump and could barely contain ourselves. Dad kickstarted the tiny machine and proceeded to do many warmup laps around the backyard, telling us he needed to compute the correct distance needed for proper acceleration prior to hitting the ramp. He really laid it on thick, revving the engine- round and around the yard- and we loved it, screaming and clapping on each pass. On his final run toward the ramp, and with us kids salivating like wild dogs, the motorcycle…stalled. He tried restarting it, but to no avail. He calmly apologized to his audience, but stated that the stunt would have to wait until another day; once the bike was fixed. I would later learn that dear old dad slyly reached down and “choked” out the engine just before takeoff. You see, it wasn’t about the jump. It was all about the anticipation of the jump. The whole act was ridiculously amusing, but it was also wildly entertaining- and I loved it. And to this day I love dad for it.

I could have used this space to ramble on about my background in television, puppetry and theme park entertainment, but nothing tells you more about who I am than this. It’s what makes me, me. Thanks, Dad!