GK: Time once again for Famous Celebrities (THEME)....brought to you by NorDel, makers of MarCo.........How do famous people feel about Mother's Day ----? Of course, as public figures, they have to be in favor of motherhood, and yet, as they think back on their childhood, wasn't there something about their mothers that really ticked them off? Mr. President, let's start with you. Did your mother ever bug you in some way?
TR (CLINTON): Well, you know, so much of my own values ---- my belief in the American people, for example, and in our ability to renew ourselves and to retrain and adapt to a changing economy, a global economy in which our very prosperity depends on what happens in Brussels and Jakarta and Beijing and in Africa ----- we've just recently come up with the first major trade agreement with Africa in thirty years -- -- not aid, but trade ----- and what this means is that, in the twenty-first century, we're going to be more interconnected than ever before---
GK: Mr. President---- Mr. President----- so you got these values from your mother?
TR (CLINTON): Yes, I did.
GK: Your belief in international free trade?
TR (CLINTON): Yes. And in openness, and in freedom in general.....
GK: But did she also do things that irritated the heck out of you----
TR (CLINTON): Yes, she did.
GK: And what was that, Mr. President?
TR (CLINTON): She used to ask me if I was making time with Norma Jo Jackson.
GK: And what did you say?
TR (CLINTON): I said no.
GK: And were you?
TR (CLINTON): I believe I've already answered that question.
GK: Thank you, Mr. President. What about you, Mr. Perot? I'm sure that you adore your mother and you're grateful to her and all, but didn't she do things that drove you right up the wall?
TR (PEROT): My mama was just plain folks. She was as down-to-earth as the Sears Roebuck catalogue in the biffy, why there wasn't anything made- up or high-falutin about my mama ----- she was country people, my mama ---- she was as natural as a goose eating strawberries. She was something, that Mama.
GK: Anything about her irritate you?
TR (PEROT): Yes, the fact that I'm the spitting image of her.
GK: I see.
TR (PEROT): Daddy was a dead ringer for Gregory Peck.
GK: Uh huh.
TR (PEROT): Mama had doors-ajar ears and a big beezer and bad hair.
GK: I see.
TR (PEROT): And she talked in a voice that would take the tartar right off a person's teeth!
GK: Okay. Julia Child? Mother's Day. A day when we honor our mothers, but----- any thing about your mother that used to drive you nuts?
TR (JULIA): My mother knew everything about books and music and plays but her way of preparing a meal was to cook it until it caught on fire.
GK: I see.
TR (JULIA): Or she's boil it until it turned to mush. I was eighteen years old before I discovered that peas were supposed to have a taste.
GK: Thank you. Ted Koppel--- your mother ---- how did she irritate you?
TR (KOPPEL): I think that perhaps one of the more irritating things about my mother, if not the most irritating, was her habit, which I gradually became aware of as I grew older and of course in that period of a person's life as you begin to gain a sense of yourself as an individual and you naturally attempt to distinguish yourself from your parents, or in a sense, to set yourself apart from them, and I think this was when I first began to see myself as a communicator.
GK: Good.
TR (KOPPEL): And I hope that answers your question.
GK: Yes, it does. Thank you. Mr. Kissinger? How about your mother? What did she do that really bugged you?
TR (KISSINGER): Well, of course I cherish my mother's memory, but I've always wondered why she kept me alone with her in our farmhouse until I was thirteen years old.
GK: You never played with other children until you were thirteen?
TR (KISSINGER): We didn't have any children living near us.
GK: You had no brothers or sisters?
TR (KISSINGER): I was an only child.
GK: And your father?
TR (KISSINGER): He lived someplace else.
GK: So your mother was your sole companion?
TR (KISSINGER): She taught me everything. She taught me to talk.
GK: She did?
TR (KISSINGER): This is how she taught me to talk.
GK: With this accent.
TR (KISSINGER): She was ashamed of the fact that we were North Dakotans. She wanted me to sound interesting.
GK: You weren't German?
TR (KISSINGER): Swedish. But she thought if I talked with this accent, I'd stand a better chance of getting into Harvard.
GK: And now you're stuck with this voice.
TR (KISSINGER): Exactly. I always wanted to sing George Gershwin. But how can I? (SINGS) There's a somebody I'm longing to see, I hope that she, turns out to be someone to watch over me.
GK: Thank you. Mr. Rogers, how about your mother? Wonderful as she was, no doubt about it ----- weren't there things about her that drove you right up a tree?
TR (ROGERS): You want to know about my mother? Is that what you're asking? Well, my mother was a very special person. She was gentle and good and always doing nice things for other people. Yes, she was. She was so busy doing good that she forgot to take baths and she smelled very bad. Yes, she did. It was so bad it would have knocked the buzzards off the garbage truck. Yes, it would have.
GK: She smelled that bad, huh?
TR (ROGERS): Yes, she did. Otherwise, Mother was a very nice person, and she cared very much about other people. Unfortunately, she didn't like me at all.
GK: I see.
TR (ROGERS): She got very angry at me if I ever spoke in my outdoor voice. Even if I was outdoors, she made me speak in my very quiet voice. Yes, she did. And if I didn't speak in my little voice, she would lock me in a closet for a whole week.
GK: That must've been hard.
TR (ROGERS): Yes, it was. But children learn to adjust. Yes, they do.
GK: Do you ever like to shout now?
TR (ROGERS): Do you like to shout? Do you? Some people do. Yes, they do. But I don't. No. Would you like to know why I don't? Would you?
GK: Thank you, Mr. Rogers. (THEME) That's all the time we have for today's edition of Famous Celebrities.....Brought to you by MarCom, makers of UniHar.
(c) 1998 by Garrison Keillor