From: smart_book2001@yahoo.com   
      
   Never Have Your Dog Stuffed   
   And Other Things I've Learned   
   By Alan Alda   
   Published by Random House   
   September 2005;$24.95US/$33.95CAN; 1-4000-6409-0   
      
   Never Have Your Dog Stuffed   
   and Other Things I've Learned   
      
   Chapter 1   
      
   DON'T NOTICE ANYTHING   
      
   My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six, but she must have   
   shown signs of oddness before that. Her detached gaze, the secret smile.   
   Something.   
      
   We were living in a two-room apartment over the dance floor of a nightclub.   
   My father was performing in the show that played below us every night. We   
   could hear the musical numbers through the floorboards, and we had heard the   
   closing number at midnight. My father should have come back from work hours   
   ago.   
      
   My mother had asked me to stay up with her. She was lonely. We played gin   
   rummy as the band below us played "Brazil" and couples danced through the   
   haze of booze and cigarette smoke late into the night.   
      
   Finally, he came in. She jumped up, furious. "Where have you been?" she   
   screamed. Even at the age of six, I could understand her anger. He worked   
   with half-naked women and came home late. It wasn't crazy to be suspicious.   
      
   She told him she knew he was sleeping with someone. He denied it. "You are!"   
   she screamed. He denied it again, this time impatiently.   
      
   "You son of a bitch!" she said. She picked up a paring knife and lunged at   
   him, trying to plunge it into his face. This was crazy.   
      
   He caught her by the wrist. "What's the matter with you?"   
      
   They struggled over the knife as I pleaded with them to stop. When he forced   
   her to drop it, I picked up the knife and rammed it point first into the   
   table so it couldn't be used again.   
      
   A few weeks later, the three of us were at the small table by the   
   kitchenette, eating.   
      
   I was playing with the knives and forks in the silverware tray. I found a   
   paring knife with a bent point and I looked up at my mother: "Remember when   
   I stuck the knife in the table?"   
      
   "When?"   
      
   "When you wanted to stab Daddy?"   
      
   She smiled. "Don't be silly. I never did that. I love Daddy. You just   
   imagined that." She laughed a lighthearted but deliberate laugh. I looked   
   over at my father, who looked away and said nothing.   
      
   I knew what I saw, but I wasn't supposed to speak about it. I didn't   
   understand why. I didn't understand how this worked yet.   
      
   Gradually, I came to learn that not speaking about things is how we   
   operated. When we would visit another family, my mother was afraid I might   
   embarrass them by calling attention to something like dust balls or carpet   
   stains. As we stood at the door, waiting for them to answer our knock, she   
   would turn to me, completely serious, and say, "Don't notice anything."   
      
   We had a strange list of things you didn't notice or talk about. The night   
   the country was voting on Roosevelt's fourth term, my father came back from   
   the local schoolhouse and I asked him whom he'd voted for. "Well," he said   
   with a little smile, "we have a secret ballot in this country." I didn't ask   
   him again, because I could see it was one of the things you don't talk   
   about, but I couldn't figure out why there was a law against telling your   
   children how you voted.   
      
   One thing we never talked about was mental illness. The words were never   
   spoken between my father and me. This wasn't the policy just in our own   
   family. At that time, mental illness was more like a curse than a disease,   
   and it was shameful for the whole family to admit it existed. Somehow it   
   would discredit your parents, your cousins, and everyone close to you. You   
   just kept quiet about it.   
      
   How much easier it could have been for my father and me to face her illness   
   together; to compare notes, to figure out strategies. Instead, each of us   
   was on his own. And I alternated between thinking her behavior was his fault   
   and thinking it was mine. Once I learned there was such a thing as sin and I   
   entered adolescence and came across a sin I really liked, I began to be   
   convinced that my sins actually caused her destructive episodes. They   
   appeared to coincide. This wasn't entirely illogical, because they both   
   tended to occur every day. I was convinced I held a magic wand that could   
   damage the entire household.   
      
   Like the earliest humans, I put together my observations and came up with a   
   picture of how things worked that was as ingenious as it was cockeyed. And   
   like the earliest people, in my early days I was full of watching and   
   figuring. I was curious from the first moments -- not as a pastime, but as a   
   way to survive.   
      
   As I sat at the kitchen table that night, looking at the paring knife with   
   the bent point, I was trying to figure out why I was supposed to not know   
   what I knew. I was already wondering: Why are things like this? What's   
   really happening here?   
      
   There was plenty about my world to stimulate my curiosity. From my earliest   
   days, I was standing off on the side, watching, trying to understand a world   
   that fascinated me. It was a world of coarse jokes and laughter late into   
   the night, a world of gambling and drinking and the frequent sight of the   
   buttocks, thighs, and breasts of naked women.   
      
   It seemed to me that the world was very interesting. How could you not want   
   to explore a place like this?   
      
   Author   
   Alan Alda played Hawkeye Pierce for eleven years in the television series   
   M*A*S*H and has acted in, written, and directed many feature films. He has   
   starred often on Broadway, and his avid interest in science has led to his   
   hosting PBS's Scientific American Frontiers for eleven years. He was   
   nominated for an Academy Award in 2005 and has been nominated for thirty-one   
   (and has won five) Emmy Awards. He is married to the children's book author   
   and photographer Arlene Alda. They have three grown children and seven   
   grandchildren. For more information, visit www.alanaldabook.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)