Kinky Friedman is pretty funny. But so, according to Andrew Solow, son of the recently departed Nobel economist, Robert Solow, was Milton Friedman. At the very recent memorial for Solow, Andrew recounted a Solow visit to Friedman, then at Stanford, which was quite hilarious.
When he was still around, my father, gone now these last 22 years, would tell a story about how I, at age 2, had jumped into bed with Milton Friedman. My father, also an economist--Solow and his wife had hosted my parents' wedding--had said that Friedman had come to stay at our house in Seattle, following a rape on the University of Washington campus, ostensibly to protect my mother. In the story, my father would recount that after finding a strange man in my parents' bed, I'd beaten a hasty retreat back downstairs, and found my mother on the living room couch where she'd spent the night, and I'd said to her--and this was what my father had thought was so funny--"where's the other guy?!!"
It didn't occur to me to ask my father about this crazy story when he was still around.
So I tried to think of who might know something about this. I had my own doubts about the story. My parents were left wingers, and Friedman, of course, was a right winger. My mother was a tough character, and it was hard for me to imagine her putting up with a right winger.
Most of my parents' economist friends were gone by this time, but Robert Solow was still around. I told him the story, and asked him if he knew anything about it. "THAT'S PREPOSTEROUS!" said Solow, his voice dripping with amusement!
But when, after his death, I'd mentioned the story in a note of condolence, Kate Solow, daughter of Robert, said that her father had been friends with Friedman. But she didn't provide details. After hearing Andy's stories about the Solows' visit to Friedman, the answer to my conundrum was obvious. Friedman, going to Seattle early in his career, a place where he'd likely never been before, and likely didn't know anyone, had almost certainly asked Solow who he should look up in Seattle. And Solow would have given him my parents' info.
So, yes, I really did jump into bed with Milton Friedman. But no, I will never recount that story in the middle of a tryst!
Thank you Chris! It's so weird for me to think that this actually happened! My older brother actually has a vague memory of it, and he recounted it to his wife's uncle, who had been a student of Friedman's.
And it's funny. I have a lot of very early memories. People always say that such early memories are often really not memories, but stories one has heard. Well, I must have heard my father tell this one on numerous occasions, but I have absolutely no memory of it, unlike, say, the time, when I was a year and a half old, when my brother, who would have been 4, came into my bedroom quite early one morning. He had a large book, and he stuck it in my crib, and I threw it out onto the floor, and he threw it back into my crib, and it went on like that for quite a while. I never heard that as a story, and my brother doesn't remember it. But I do.
I, too, remember many vivid details from early childhood. I disagree with those who say that's not possible. This story of mine is from my vivid memories from when I was five: https://fictionalized.substack.com/p/hole-in-the-floorboard.
Chris, I don't know what to say. I'm not through it yet, but it was really hard to read about leaving your mother behind, and you write so vividly. I can't imagine something like that. (My father flipped over my mother the moment he saw her walk into the statistics class on his first day of graduate school, but it took him a couple of weeks to get her to notice him. 54 years later, when she was on her deathbed, he'd look at her like it was just last week she'd walked into that class, and he'd say, "She's... so... beautiful!" I had three cross country trips by the time I was 8 (Menlo Park to Cambridge when I was 4; Boston to Seattle when I was 7; and Seattle to Boston when I was 8) but they were joyful affairs, and when I was 10 I figured out that I could do it on a bicycle within a summer vacation--which I did after graduating from college. I drove myself across the country the first time when I was 17, with a couple of riders, when the family went to Stanford for a sabbatical--in an 8 year old '62 Falcon.
Here is one of my early memories, the only one that's been published so far.
Chris, I'm not sure what's fact and what's fiction in that story you wrote. I don't know how one would get over seeing their mother left behind in that manner, even if they eventually got her back, and I don't know how the mother would cope with having her children taken from her. Or how a five year old would cope with a father doing such a terrible thing.
Kinky Friedman is pretty funny. But so, according to Andrew Solow, son of the recently departed Nobel economist, Robert Solow, was Milton Friedman. At the very recent memorial for Solow, Andrew recounted a Solow visit to Friedman, then at Stanford, which was quite hilarious.
When he was still around, my father, gone now these last 22 years, would tell a story about how I, at age 2, had jumped into bed with Milton Friedman. My father, also an economist--Solow and his wife had hosted my parents' wedding--had said that Friedman had come to stay at our house in Seattle, following a rape on the University of Washington campus, ostensibly to protect my mother. In the story, my father would recount that after finding a strange man in my parents' bed, I'd beaten a hasty retreat back downstairs, and found my mother on the living room couch where she'd spent the night, and I'd said to her--and this was what my father had thought was so funny--"where's the other guy?!!"
It didn't occur to me to ask my father about this crazy story when he was still around.
So I tried to think of who might know something about this. I had my own doubts about the story. My parents were left wingers, and Friedman, of course, was a right winger. My mother was a tough character, and it was hard for me to imagine her putting up with a right winger.
Most of my parents' economist friends were gone by this time, but Robert Solow was still around. I told him the story, and asked him if he knew anything about it. "THAT'S PREPOSTEROUS!" said Solow, his voice dripping with amusement!
But when, after his death, I'd mentioned the story in a note of condolence, Kate Solow, daughter of Robert, said that her father had been friends with Friedman. But she didn't provide details. After hearing Andy's stories about the Solows' visit to Friedman, the answer to my conundrum was obvious. Friedman, going to Seattle early in his career, a place where he'd likely never been before, and likely didn't know anyone, had almost certainly asked Solow who he should look up in Seattle. And Solow would have given him my parents' info.
So, yes, I really did jump into bed with Milton Friedman. But no, I will never recount that story in the middle of a tryst!
What a story! I loved that you shared this.
Thank you Chris! It's so weird for me to think that this actually happened! My older brother actually has a vague memory of it, and he recounted it to his wife's uncle, who had been a student of Friedman's.
And it's funny. I have a lot of very early memories. People always say that such early memories are often really not memories, but stories one has heard. Well, I must have heard my father tell this one on numerous occasions, but I have absolutely no memory of it, unlike, say, the time, when I was a year and a half old, when my brother, who would have been 4, came into my bedroom quite early one morning. He had a large book, and he stuck it in my crib, and I threw it out onto the floor, and he threw it back into my crib, and it went on like that for quite a while. I never heard that as a story, and my brother doesn't remember it. But I do.
I, too, remember many vivid details from early childhood. I disagree with those who say that's not possible. This story of mine is from my vivid memories from when I was five: https://fictionalized.substack.com/p/hole-in-the-floorboard.
Chris, I don't know what to say. I'm not through it yet, but it was really hard to read about leaving your mother behind, and you write so vividly. I can't imagine something like that. (My father flipped over my mother the moment he saw her walk into the statistics class on his first day of graduate school, but it took him a couple of weeks to get her to notice him. 54 years later, when she was on her deathbed, he'd look at her like it was just last week she'd walked into that class, and he'd say, "She's... so... beautiful!" I had three cross country trips by the time I was 8 (Menlo Park to Cambridge when I was 4; Boston to Seattle when I was 7; and Seattle to Boston when I was 8) but they were joyful affairs, and when I was 10 I figured out that I could do it on a bicycle within a summer vacation--which I did after graduating from college. I drove myself across the country the first time when I was 17, with a couple of riders, when the family went to Stanford for a sabbatical--in an 8 year old '62 Falcon.
Here is one of my early memories, the only one that's been published so far.
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/The-home-forum/2020/0805/heeding-her-invitation-six-decades-later
Chris, I'm not sure what's fact and what's fiction in that story you wrote. I don't know how one would get over seeing their mother left behind in that manner, even if they eventually got her back, and I don't know how the mother would cope with having her children taken from her. Or how a five year old would cope with a father doing such a terrible thing.
Don't stop doing this!
You mean saying the wrong things during sex? Just curious.
Another winner! "I love your" outlook.
Thank you for that.