I was surprised by how much I like being a father; surprised at what a decent father I am, because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to dump my selfishness.
There are so many things that are misunderstood or not recognized about my father's music because they've been filtered by people who work for magazines like Rolling Stone.
I surrendered to a world of my imagination, reenacting all those wonderful tales my father would read aloud to me. I became a very active reader, especially history and Shakespeare.
But as my brother was doing his research for a book about my father, it became his opinion that the most influential anti-semitism my father encountered when he was growing up was from Jews, because his relatives were German Jews, and doctors.
And let me tell you, you boys of America, that there is no higher inspiration to any man to be a good man, a good citizen, and a good son, brother, or father, than the knowledge that you come from honest blood.
Father had notions about manhood suffrage, public schools, the education and the elevation of the masses, and the gradual emancipation of the slaves, that did not suit the uncompromising views of people in places like Richmond.
I'm crazy about my father, he's an amazing man, a real adventurer. He took us with him to travel all over the world. We were in places that were so remote, that white people hardly ever reach them.
My father was on the faculty in the Chemistry Department of Harvard University; my mother had one year of graduate work in physics before her marriage.
