Create, Then Take a Break: 250 Anecdotes and Stories

This is a short, quick, and easy read.

Some Sample Anecdotes:

• John Barrymore was noted as much for his dissipation as for his acting. While acting in Hamlet after a night of revelry, he began the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, but in the middle of the speech found it necessary to retire to the side of the stage so he could vomit. Later, he was complimented for this innovation: "I say, Barrymore, that was the most daring and perhaps the most effective innovation ever offered. I refer to your deliberate pausing in the midst of the soliloquy to retire, almost, from the scene. May I congratulate you upon such imaginative business? You seemed quite distraught. But it was effective!"

• Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) noticed something odd about the critics who reviewed his books. When they reviewed his first book, they denounced it as "rubbish." However, when they reviewed his second book, they denounced it as an unworthy successor to his first book, which had been excellent.

• When George Balanchine took his New York City Ballet on tour to his native Russia, he was displeased with the behavior of his dancers, who engaged in a food fight in a Russian dining room because they found the food unappetizing. Mr. Balanchine chewed out his dancers, telling them that they were ambassadors from the United States to Russia and such behavior was unacceptable. Suzanne Farrell once mentioned to him that she liked the omelets, and trying to be helpful, Mr. Balanchine arranged with the Russian cooks to feed her omelets for breakfast, lunch, and supper. She ate hundreds of eggs during the tour.

• Actress Maud Gill once wore a large picture hat on stage. Before one performance, a mouse got into the hat, and Ms. Maud put on the hat and unknowingly carried the mouse with her on stage, where the mouse's desperate attempts to escape entangled it in her hair. She was forced to take off the hat on stage, and the audience gasped at her taste in hairstyles.

• In 1996, one of the student hacks (pranks) at MIT was the replacing of the "No Trespassing" signs at the entrance to the computer clusters with signs that stated, "You must be at least this smart to use Athena workstations," complete with a graph that charted levels of intelligence. The bottom intelligence level was "Urchins who log in as root." In the middle intelligence levels were "average Harvard student," "average B.U. [Boston University] student," and "average CalTech student." Holding the top intelligence level was "below-average MIT student." In the 1980s an elevator hacker replaced the word "UP" with "Heaven" and the word "DOWN" with "MIT."

It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly a cry rang out, and on a hot summer night in 1954, Josephine, wife of Carl Bruce, gave birth to a boy - me. Unfortunately, this young married couple allowed Reuben Saturday, Josephine's brother, to name their first-born. Reuben, aka "The Joker," decided that Bruce was a nice name, so he decided to name me Bruce Bruce. I have gone by my middle name — David — ever since.

Being named Bruce David Bruce hasn't been all bad. Bank tellers remember me very quickly, so I don’t often have to show an ID. It can be fun in charades, also. When I was a counselor as a teenager at Camp Echoing Hills in Warsaw, Ohio, a fellow counselor gave the signs for "sounds like" and “two words,” then she pointed to a bruise on her leg twice. Bruise Bruise?

Oh yeah, Bruce Bruce is the answer!

Uncle Reuben, by the way, gave me a haircut when I was in kindergarten. He cut my hair short and shaved a small bald spot on the back of my head. My mother wouldn't let me go to school until the bald spot grew out again.

Of all my brothers and sisters (six in all), I am the only transplant to Athens, Ohio. I was born in Newark, Ohio, and have lived all around Southeastern Ohio. However, I moved to Athens to go to Ohio University and have never left.

At Ohio U, I never could make up my mind whether to major in English or Philosophy, so I got a bachelor's degree with a double major in both areas, then I added a Master of Arts degree in English and a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy. Yes, I have my MAMA degree.

Currently, and for a long time to come (I eat fruits and veggies), I am spending my retirement writing books such as Nadia Comaneci: Perfect 10, The Funniest People in Comedy, Homer's Iliad: A Retelling in Prose, and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: A Retelling in Prose.

If all goes well, I will publish one or two books a year for the rest of my life. (On the other hand, a good way to make God laugh is to tell Her your plans.)

By the way, my sister Brenda Kennedy writes romances such as A New Beginning and Shattered Dreams.