I was born nine months to the day after my father and mother were married, June 16th, 1919. They loved to tell me that. I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, at 704 W. 2nd Street. There's a lawyer's office there now, but I was born in my grandmother's house. Her name was Molly Worthen. My grandfather, W.D. Worthen, died when my mother was about twelve or thirteen. She was the youngest of six or seven children.
My other grandfather was James Penick. He owned a grocery store out on Main Street in those days, right downtown at Seventeenth and Main, and they lived out on Sixteenth. Anyway, he had a big house out there, and he had that grocery store that was what we would call a fine grocery store, now, and he delivered groceries. That was in the 1910s and 20s, and, of course, they delivered with a horse in those days.
My grandfather was a very strict man, according to my father. I knew my grandfather, but I was only about five when he passed on. My father had to help with all the work while he was growing up. He had to tend to the horse, mostly, which he didn't like at all. My mother was a friend of Papa's sister, and Grandfather Penick, whose grocery store it was, liked my mother. She sometimes helped in the store on Saturdays. Oh, they tell a wonderful story about . . . Grandmother did, or Mother did, or one of them did . . . that Grandmother Worthen had a carriage, in about 1910 or '15, and she would go to the grocery store sometimes.
One time, when Mother was a teen-ager and going to the store with Grandmother Worthen, Grandmother Penick was in the grocery store. Papa, Grandmother Penick's son James, who was my father, was with her. They needed to go home. So, Grandmother Worthen said they would drop Mrs. Penick and James home. They climbed into the carriage, and Grandmother said that . . . well, of course, Papa was about twelve, and at kind of at an awkward age . . . Mrs. Penick, Grandmother Penick, kept saying, "Speak to Mary, James. Speak to Mary, James," Mary being my mother. He'd just kind of sit there glowering, you know, and Mother says, "That was one of the few times I really took much notice of him until he came to me and said he wanted to marry me."
My grandmother was sixty-four when I was born, but we lived with her until I was six or seven years old. I spent a lot of time with her. She would tell me little stories about her life. She was born in 1856, here in Little Rock, and her family was involved in the Civil War. Her father had to leave the family and go off to be in the Army. When the Union Army was coming, her mother, who was my grandmother's mother (my great grandmother, Sue Pey), got a caravan together, two or three wagons, as I understand it, and took the family (six children) and their two slaves down to Washington, Arkansas, down in the southern part near Texarkana. It was a settlement of Confederates, but the Union Army didn't seem to bother them. It was probably because it was mostly a settlement of women and children. My great grandmother's family were French descendents, basically Huguenots, really, who had come over here. We've been Protestants from the word go.
My father (James Penick) used to tell me of a wonderful story of the time he went to my grandmother and told her he wanted to marry my mother. They (my father and mother) were twenty, I guess. He said to me, "Your grandmother was one of the wisest women I've ever known. She just looked at me, and said, `Oh James, you're so young!'" He was just three or four months older than my mother. He was born in July, and she was born in November. They were married in September 1918. She was twenty, and he was twenty-one when they married. Then, when I was born, she was twenty-one, and he was twenty-one. He was almost twenty-two.
They were married in New York because Papa was in the Army, and he was being sent overseas. Grandmother was at the wedding. She was the only one of the family who could attend. Mother told me how she wouldn't get married until Grandmother went up there. They were married in that little church, a little Episcopal church, down on Wall Street. Sometimes when you're watching that news program, The Wall Street Weekend Review with Louis Rukeyser, there's one little view of a little church, just at the end of Wall Street, and that's where my mother and father were married.
One of the stories I like to tell about my mother happened during a time when everyone was having it real hard making ends meet. It was during the Depression. She had this real big pot she used to cook things in, and she was cooking for all of us children. We were real hungry, and she'd try her best to stretch things as far as they would go. She'd keep adding water to it, and we'd be saying, "Mama, when can we eat?" It was grits she was cooking that time. She'd say, "Whenever the grits are ready!" and then I know she'd go back and add another half-cup of water in there so the grits were still runny. You know, so it would be another fifteen minutes, and another fifteen minutes, and another fifteen minutes later. Oh, my mother was a character! She'd be a great one to interview. She was like my husband; she enjoyed life fully.
The family name, Penick, is English, I believe. I think it's the Cornish part, from the Cornish part of England. Most of my heritage is English, except we've always said that our papa's grandmother, who would be my great-grandmother, was Quapaw Indian. None of the boys of the family would ever admit to that, though. Her name was Josephine Bird, and she had coal-black hair and coal-black eyes. She was Creole, if not Quapaw. She looked like it, and she had, like us, she had these high cheek bones. But the boys say, "Oh, she wasn't Indian; it just sounds like an Indian." But, anyway, she had two children. My Grandfather Penick, and a daughter named Iris.
That was my Grandaunt Iris. I saw Iris, once. She looked Indian. I mean, she was as big as I am and looked something like me: had brown eyes, had dark brown-black hair. Was very, uh . . . well, didn't have much expression in her face, if you know what I mean. She was very . . . contained. We went to Memphis when her husband, Walter, died. Papa went up to her, and greeted her, and told her he was sorry about Uncle Walter. Then he introduced her to me. It was a bad time for her, of course, and she was gracious, but she was far from congenial. She had the body at home, and the only thing I remember her saying was something about . . . "Close the blind behind the casket, please, James," or something like that, you know. She was just that kind of a woman, you know, just was a very contained, staid sort of a person. They didn't have any children. Too staid. In those days you had them (children), you know, whether you wanted them or not. Whether you wanted them or not.
My great-grandfather was a Methodist circuit rider. You know what a circuit rider was? Down in Northern Missouri . . . down around Rustin. Down in that part of Missouri was where he operated. His name was Thomas. Oh, there's a wonderful story about him. You should never get me started. I'll go on and on and on. When he died . . . We have copies of his obituary . . . It tells all that he had done, that he'd worked down there, how faithful he had been, and all this . . . Then it says, "Mr. Penick was a man of violent temper." Well, he apparently had one helluva temper. When he lost it, it was, "Katey, bar the gates!" But, I thought that was a strange thing for them to put in his obituary. That was the last sentence in the obituary. I can see it now. This was the preacher! Yes! Had a violent temper! Well, I just always thought that was peculiar. Here he was a minister and everything, and they put that statement in the newspaper. He must have really had a helluva temper!
Josephine didn't travel with him. She was his second wife. I don't think he had any children by his first wife. And, she was some younger than he, as near as I can see. But, she did go back to his home with him when he retired. His home had been Carrolton, Kentucky. We know she went with him, because Papa became interested in where she or he was buried and went through hell trying to find where they were. Papa finally found them both, Thomas M. Penick and Josephine, in a small, untended cemetery up in Carrolton, Kentucky. That's where my high cheek bones come from . . . Josephine Bird, that the boys refuse to think was Indian. I used to say, "Look at me," to my brother Jim, "and look at your brother, Ed, and say there's not Indian in us. Who knows?"
I went to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Of all the subjects in the world, I received a degree in English and German. Why I chose German, I don't know, but I was good at it, and so I did it. My first year in college I took four or five subjects, and only one of them was an elective. The rest of them were required: compulsory we called it in those days. My elective for my freshman year was ancient history, and I just loved it. Loved it! We learned all about the Greeks and Romans, and all of that. I never had a background in ancient history, so that was fascinating to me. Then, when you got to maybe your junior year, you could take more electives. You could select what subjects you wanted to take and specialize in, so to speak. I remember that very well.
My papa asked me to take courses in money and banking. He didn't make me; he asked me to, and I did it. Money and banking! I'll never forget the courses. I mean, they were more dull stuff than I could ever imagine! Theories of money and economy! That's what all that was. It was boring, but I took it and got good grades. That's about all that mattered.
My father made me take physics, and you know that's not my forte. You can see me in physics! We had to wire up a circuit to electricity, and we had to . . . oh, I don't know . . . we had to do all kinds of things that were not in my nature. I did pass. Made a C. Finally. Papa had to help me with a lot of the projects. But, at least I got the idea of electricity, and what it was, and how it worked.
I was in Phi Beta Kappa, but I can't say that I was a terrific writer. Oh, phooey . . .
I'm not a terrific writer. I like to read. I can't say that I think I write all that well. Anyway, I wrote because, as you know, if you go to college long enough, you have to write papers. In those days, it wasn't as complicated as it is now. I did have a typewriter. Some of my colleagues, compatriots, did not have a typewriter, but you could do your papers in longhand in those days. You know, that was in the late thirties. You didn't have to have even a typewriter. Now it's all on the computer, all that sort of stuff. In fact, Louisa [daughter] even almost talked me into getting one. She said, "Mother, I've got a little lap top something-or-other that I can hook up, and I think you'll enjoy it. You can use it and can go online and find things that you want." So, I don't know. She'll probably move me into the twenty-first century. But, I'm not one for mechanical things.
When I graduated college in June of 1940, I took a Caribbean cruise with a couple of girlfriends. I wasn't much for the social scene and all that, and, when I came back, my mother and father had put my picture in the paper as a debutante for the coming year. I was furious! I was so put out! I said. "I am not going to do that!" Mother said, "Oh, it would be so embarrassing. How are we going to explain your picture being in the paper if you're not going to be in the group?" So, I went ahead and did it. It's one of the best things that ever happened to me. That's how I met Jeanne, my best friend, and Peck. Jeanne and I stood next to each other at one of these "coming out" parties. I just knew I knew her from something, lives past or something. We just knew we knew each other. Jeanne was very, very popular. She was beautiful, and still is, and all the men wanted to take her out. She never had any trouble with having an escort and always two or ten waiting.
Peck had been making the circuit of debutantes for two or three years. He was one of the escorts. I had never met him, although he lived just up the street, five or six blocks. He was escorting somebody else, but, later, we were put together at one of those parties. That's how people did it in those days. They'd have those parties and take a list of young women and young men and put them together. Of course, if there was someone in particular you wanted to be paired with, you could tell the hostess, and the two of you would be paired together. You met a lot of young men and women, doing it that way. The era had just passed when you went to a dance and had a card, and the escorts wrote their name on the card as to which dance they would dance with you.
Oh-h-h! It's hard for me to describe Peck, because he was such an unusual, and, of course, to me, extremely attractive person. He was s-o-o-o full of himself and life. Almost outrageous in his horrendous enjoyment of everything. His criteria was, "Is it fun?" Or, "Do you want to do it?" It was not, "Is it right? Is it wrong?" Or, "Is it up?" Or, "Is it down?" "Are we going to have a good time doing this, Cissie? Is it going to be fun, Cissie?" That's not a bad criteria. Let me tell you. Of course, it depends upon what your tastes are.
He was a wonderful salesman. He could sell an Eskimo a refrigerator. I discovered, watching him operate over the years, how he did it. He convinced himself first of all, that this was what you had to have. You know, that this was going to be a terrible mistake if you didn't buy this thing because it was the finest in the country, and blah-blah-blah, and just what you ought to have. I never could get that conviction into myself to convince anybody else! He said, "You always start with the premise that you really don't want this, don't you?" He said, "That's not going to sell anybody anything." I'm not a salesman. I could never be a salesman. But he was. He liked people, and, basically, wanted them to have what would make them comfortable or what would be the best for them in the long run.
It was like a whole different world. We were opposites as day and night! Just as day and night! No question about it. He used to say my middle name was Median. He said, "Everything you ever want is right down the middle of the line." And, that's kind of the way it is with me. I'd always rather be right down the center . . . like this. Well, not Peck! The center was dull. "I'd rather be way down here on this side, or way up there on that side. I don't want to be on the median," he would say. `Median!" he used to call me that sometimes.
It's wonderful if you can find somebody that . . . I don't know . . . Everybody has certain qualities. I think a person can only pick their own friends, and their own lovers, so to speak. Most of the young men that I dated and what not, in my estimation, were duller than dishwater. D-u-l-l. Dull. They were just the same ol' six or seven hours.
I was engaged to a young man when I was first in college. He was a little bit different from me in that he was a flyer and a camper, but he had an old Model T Ford that he had picked up for little or no money, and he spent his life working on that Tin Lizzie, so to speak. But, that was what he liked. Now, you can imagine somebody like that and me! He didn't break dates to work on that machine. He was never that absorbed in it, but that was just where his interests were. He liked to play golf, and he liked to fool with that ol' Tin Lizzie. Those were his main interests. It only took me three or four years to realize that this was not going to work, that I was going to be bored to hell with him in nothing flat. I might have been mad, furious, and heartbroken with Peck. But, I was never bored! I was never bored! I can say that! I was never bored! There was not a boring moment! You never knew, when he walked in the door, what was coming out of the mouth, or what had taken place, or how it had worked, or anything! It worked for me. Yes, it worked for me.
We married in 1942. When Peck died in 1978, we had been married for thirty-six years. Peck's father was married three times. His previous wives died, though. They were not divorced. His older sister, Mabel, had seven husbands, and, needless to say, they didn't all die. Then, his brother, Branton, had three or four wives, and they did divorce. I used to laugh, you know, as the years went on. I said, "You're going to be the only Brandon man in history that's had only one wife. He said, "Well, I figured if we didn't get along, we could always get a divorce." And I said, "Brother! You didn't know me! I never figured anything like that! This was it! This was all she wrote!" Right?
My father thought I had lost my mind! He thought I had gone absolutely nuts! Peck was in the stove business at that time with his father, and the war was on, see. That was in 1941, '42, and they were having trouble getting metal to make stoves because they were taking it for the "war machine." Papa was never, never gracious. My father was a gracious and kindly man, but when beaus came to call on me, he'd just sit there and look at them. He was never gracious with my beaus. Peck was trying to talk to my father one day , and he said something facetious, you know. Papa should have caught on to what Peck was saying and how he was saying it. Something about, "Well, Mr. Nick, you having much problem getting money these days?" Well, Papa looked at him like he was crazy!
When I told Papa that I was going to marry Peck Brandon, I'll never forget how he reacted. My mother and father were there, both of them, and I said "I'm going to marry Peck Brandon." Papa looked up at me and said, "Is that the `are-you-having-much-trouble-getting-money boy?'" And, I said, "Yes. That's the one." He said, "You'd better go get me a glass of water!" He just couldn't take it in. He just could not take it in. Of course, he didn't know much about Peck, personally. He had let him in the front door, and that's about it. But, after Papa got to know him, he adored Peck. Of all the in-laws, Peck was Papa's favorite.
To explain about my father, one of the times I got the maddest at him was when he gave me an insurance policy, of all things, for a Christmas present. Well, Lord! I was so mad! I was furious! I still have to pay on it! Every time I think about it, it makes me mad. And, I told him so when he gave it to me. He got mad, then, and he said, "Well, give it back to me, then." It's worth five hundred dollars cash." And, I said, "Well, you know I'm not going to give it back, and I'm not going to cash it in. But, if you think it's a Christmas present, you don't know the meaning of Christmas presents." I said, "I'm going to pay on it," and I'm still paying on it, twenty-five dollars a year. Still! He gave it to me in 1950. That's 49 years ago. Twenty-five dollars a year I've been paying on that damn premium, and I'm still paying on it. And, of course, Louisa will get the five thousand dollars, or whatever it's going to be.
My mother was much more perceptive about my beaus than Papa. She had seven years getting to know Peck before she died in 1949. As I said, she was more perceptive about people than Papa was, and she knew him a little bit better. She'd been around when he wasn't trying to impress anyone. Mama was more eager to meet the people I was going out with and to see what they were like. They were a lot alike, Mama and Peck. They really were. Both of them lived by, "Let's live, and live abundantly." They were sensitive. Both of them were very sensitive in ways that lots of us aren't. Anyway, it worked out all right. We got married, and Papa was crazy about him after he got to know him. In fact, I was flattered when Papa was starting his second family. When Mama died, Papa married Virginia. Virginia was expecting the baby . . . they named her Virginia, too . . . Papa said, "I hope it's a girl." I was real flattered because I always thought Papa didn't like it that I had been a girl, you know, being the first born. Men always want the first one to be a boy, or so it seems. But, he was happy when little Virginia was born, and was a girl, and was crazy about her. That made me feel good.
Peck and I lived up in Alexandria in 1942. Peck was teaching that damned barbed wire course for the Army, out of Fort Belvoir. We lived in a big old house that had been made into six apartments. It was a big old kind of Victorian home there. We had one bedroom. The rooms were huge. The living room was about the size of this one [indicating her present home]. The kitchen was small, and the bathroom was like one of those big Victorian bathrooms. That was where we lived until after Louisa was born. Then Peck was sent to somewhere down in Texas, Brownwood or Brownville, or somewhere down there. Louisa was about a year old, not quite a year old, and we just lived in a motel. I never could find us an apartment down there. It was such a busy spot. We lived in a one-room thing in the motel with Louisa. Then he went overseas, about six months after we got down there. That was in October of '44. He was in the Battle of the Bulge and all that stuff. He was overseas not quite a year and got home in September of '45, after the war was over. September or October '45.
My father was in the Army, stationed in Italy. He went back into the Army as a financial officer. And, my brother, Ed, was in China. He was with the . . . whatever they were . . . flying the whatever's over there. Jim was in training to be in the Air Corps in the Army. He was never sent overseas . . . never got to be overseas. Anyway, Mother was by herself. She moved out of the house on Summit Street and rented it, and she and I and Louisa lived together in an apartment. Made it a little easier for the three of us. Mother wasn't at all well. She had very bad high blood pressure, and in those days, they didn't know anything to do for her. So, she wasn't well, and the three of us lived together. We could look after each other, so to speak.
Mother went back into the house in about September '45. Peck came home, and we took an apartment in the south end of town and lived over there until 1948. He got out of the Army as soon as they let him, you know. They were giving him all the rigmarole about staying in the Reserves, and what it would do for him, and blah-blah-blah-blah, and he said he looked at that man and said, "Am I completely detached, now, from the Army? You have no call upon me?" The officer said, "No. Not right now, we don't. But, if you want to blah-blah-blah, Mr. Brandon, you can come back, and you'll be a major, and we'll pay you blah-blah-blah per month . . ." Peck said, "But, right now, there's no way you can call me back?" The officer said, "Well, in case of another draft. . ." And, Peck said, "Good-bye!" He wanted no part of the Army. He did well, though; he went from being a private to being a major, but he did not want any part of the life-long Army.
Ed stayed in, and they called him back in the Korean war in '51. But, then they discovered, as he said, how much he was going to cost them because he was a major, and had three children at that time. He and Evelyn had three sons, and they'd have to pay him overseas pay, plus special for the children. He reported, though. Charles was about three months old, his baby, his youngest son. Lydia was born after that. He said they were planning on sending him to Korea and what not, and one day the finance officer called him and said, "Mr. Penick? Is this right? You've been in the Army?" "Yes." "And you've got three children?" "Yes." "Dependent wife and three children?" Ed said, "Yes." He said, "Well . . . I think, maybe, we'll say good-bye to you. You're too costly!"
My brother Jim had to go back in. He was in the Reserves, too. But, they sent him back into the Finance Section. He was in Seoul for a year, 1952 or '53, somewhere along in there. But, he wasn't in the war, really. By that time, you see, he was twenty-eight and twenty-nine years old. He was too old for all that pilot training. He'd been working in the bank, so they put him in the financial section. We lived here, in Little Rock. Peck worked for his father, who had kind of a wholesale hard surface floor covering and a heater, space heater, type of business. You remember they used to have those little space heaters? Well, that's what Mr. Brandon sold. So, Peck went to work for his father. He had worked for Mr. Brandon before the war, too, when we were going together.
We didn't buy the house on Beechwood until 1964. We lived on the corner of University and Hawthorne. There was a little, kind of a white bungalow, there. We bought that in 1948 or '49, about, I guess. I got tired of living in an apartment. I never did like apartment life, so we bought that house, and we lived in that. Peck was never one to go into debt. He hated to go into debt worse than anything in the world, and, of course, we had to borrow some money. Not much, as you look at it now. But, we had to borrow ten thousand dollars, or something, and he just thought, "Oh, oh, oh! This is terrible!" He said, "I'm not going to do this unless you agree to live there twenty years." I said, "I will live there twenty years." Well, after we'd lived there about sixteen or seventeen years, I got antsy, and so I found that house over on Beechwood. I wanted to buy it. I wanted us to buy it. Peck said, "You haven't lived up to your contract. You haven't lived here twenty years." I said, "I get time-and-a-half for living with you and Louisa. I get time-and-a-half for living with you and Louisa, so I figure I've lived here twenty years. We bought that house in '64, and I sold it in '97. So, we had that house for over thirty years. We had that house for. . . .We couldn't have had that house over thirty years. Let's see. . . '64, '74, '84, '94... .We had it for over thirty years. We sure did. I actually lived in that house for over thirty years. I didn't realize that. Sold it in January '97.
We had a room in the house on Beechwood called the Continental Room. I loved that room. Yes, I liked that room. It was after Louisa went off to college that I decided that I wanted that room remodeled into a sitting room/guest room, and I wanted a fireplace. We added a fireplace and we made a bay window. I liked that part the best. I enjoyed that room. I never was sorry we did it. But, it was Louisa's bedroom up until then. She only lived there four or five years because she and John were married in '68.
Peck had this friend. Peck had a friend . . . that's the story of his life, you know, and, I mean, not just an acquaintance, a friend. And, this fellow was kind of a staid character, in my book, kind of square, and what not. His name was Fred Parrot, and he was a very fine builder. He had a small building business, and he and Peck were old friends, so he called Fred Parrot. Nolan drew the plans for us, how we were going to change the room. He called Fred Parrot, and Parrot said, well, he thought he could do it and how much it was going to cost. And, I've forgotten. It was going to be something like, between ten or twelve thousand dollars. Well, you know, how you got into those things, and it got more and more and more. And, finally, it had gotten up to fifteen thousand dollars. Peck was beginning to complain about it a little bit at that time, about it was costing so much. And Fred said, "Well, you could've always had a Continental, you know. You could buy yourselves. . ." In those days, you could buy a Continental, which was the big, fine, Lincoln car, for about fifteen or twenty thousand dollars " . . . you could have a Continental." So, Peck always called it the Continental Room. He said, "We couldn't have a Continental! Oh, no! But, we've got this room!"
Elsie, my housekeeper, has certainly been part of my life. A very wonderful part of it. I think it was something like 1947 when she first came to work for me. She remembers the date exactly, something like May the 5th. I had had an old woman named Bessie McFadden who was cleaning and working for me. Bessie and her husband decided to move to Chicago, and so she said, "I've got a niece who would be glad to have the day to come and work for you." That's how I got Elsie. I kept in touch with Bessie for years after they moved to Chicago. She'd write to me, and I'd write back. I remember they had a fiftieth wedding anniversary.
Elsie and Peter Coley were married for thirty or more years. The wonderful story about Peter was that he worked for the Sanitation Committee. I think they call it the Water Works, now. Anyway, he was a young man during the Depression, and couldn't find a job. He went down to the Sanitation Department, and they asked him, "Do you have a shovel? If you have a shovel, we'll put you to work." He brought his own shovel and went down there and worked from the '30s until, well, for about fifty years. When he retired, they gave him something for his long service, and he said, "What you really owe me is a shovel. Brought my own shovel when I came to work for you fifty years ago. What you owe me is a shovel!" Peter took time off for the Second World War. He was in some part of the Army, but when he came back, he went back to work for the Sanitation Department.
Peter died about three or four years after Peck did. They never had any children, but she has a lot of nieces and nephews who just think the world of her. She's been so helpful to them, and they've been good to her. I get tickled. I appreciate Elsie because she kind of just does what she wants to do. She has a friend down in Texas that sends her tickets to come down there, usually for Thanksgiving or Christmas. One Christmas, this friend told her she was sending Elsie a ticket, and Elsie said, "Well, I have to work." The friend got real put-out. She said, "I'll pay you whatever money you would have made working. You just come on down here." Elsie said, "Oh, no. I couldn't do that." Well, the truth is, Elsie would rather be here for Christmas. It's where she's been for fifty years. She wants to be here.
I was a widow for about four or five years when my brother Jim said, "Do you want to get married again?" I can't say that I ever wanted to. I never wanted anybody after Peck died. Jim said, "Sister, if you want to marry, there's always someone out there to marry. There's always someone out there." I said, "Obviously it's not what I want," because all I could think of was that I had all the freedom I wanted to do just what I want, when I want to do it. I said, "I just don't think I could love someone that much any more that I would want to give up my own selfish wants." It was wonderful to have someone to share the up's and down's with. It was an added bonus. But, I never wanted to marry again. You can't whim-wham over what you should or shouldn't do... . "Should I do this?" or "Should I do that?" and ask everybody in the world. That never was my way. I think you just have to work it out yourself You have to do that your whole life. You have to make decisions yourself. There's nobody can make your decisions for you.
I have three brothers and a sister. Lost a brother, my brother Jim, in 1983. He just "rolled out of bed dead," you know: that wonderful expression. He was fifty-eight. I have a wonderful story that I tell about Jim. When I had that little heart spell, `bout four or five years ago, I went to [Dr.] George Holitik. He ran the EKG and said, "You've got to go see my heart doctor friend, Dr. Barlow," and I could hear him in the next room calling and then talking to the heart doctor. "Eddie," George said, "I want you to see this relative of mine." And, then after a pause I heard him say, "No, Eddie. You better see her today. Her brother just rolled out of bed dead. Just rolled out of bed dead!"
That's the way to do it. It's wonderful. I hope I just pass peacefully in my sleep. I think you come to acceptance of dying, though, if you know you're dying. But, I'd just rather roll out of bed dead. Just roll out of bed dead! That's the way I want to go.