We had the Sesame Street sing-a-long album, and John's favorite song was Oscar the Grouch's "I Love Trash." I don't know why he had two Oscar Muppets, but I'm sure that the existence of two Oscars posed no logical conflict in John's universe.
At some point John realized that I was getting more out of photographing him than he was getting out of being photographed by me. so he started making increasingly bizarre demands. The weirdest was his request that I photograph him in the guise of a celebrity enjoying himself at a New York nightclub, and I was to play the role of a paparazzi photographer interrupting his meal. Overall kind of fun, but I really didn't enjoy the beatings and broken equipment.
We are a baseball family. We all grew up playing in the backyard and at the park, and some of us were steeped in the lore of the game. The old players - Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Van Lingle Mungo - were all household names. John was fascinated by Ty Cobb. He used a hickory bat, imitated Cobb's grip, and one time he went into the stands to beat up a heckler. But there were limits. Mom and Dad drew a line when they found John gluing carpet tacks to the bottom of his rainboots, points out.
