The Three Little Pigs soon had everyone singing, “Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” and Walt became famous throughout the world.
The nervous breakdown my father suffered in 1931 taught him a lesson. He learned the hard way that regular vacations and body-building sports are avenues to peace of mind, and he never forgot it.
There’s no sport in which Dad is outstanding, but he’s always been an advocate of athletic effort. Polo was once his chief sport, and he was a good enough horseman to have fun. But Mother always beat him at croquet. This infuriated him because he went about it so scientifically and seriously and she was so casual about it. He'd tell her at length how the game ought to be played, and she'd beat him without following his instructions.
It was the same way in cards. When canasta was the craze, Mother and Dad played until late at night—because Dad didn’t want to quit until he was ahead. And Mother kept on winning. She won at dominoes too. Finally, Dad gave up house games. He thought his sleep was more important.
It may be that it was when Dad was undergoing all the nervous and physical wear and tear which led to his crackup that he became much concerned with the inevitability of death. But Mother says that his brooding about such things began at a party some twenty years ago, when a fortuneteller casually told him that he would die when he was thirty-five. My mother’s sister, Aunt Hazel, says that he still worried about that prophecy even after he passed his thirty-fifth year. Whenever Dad is dejected or depressed, he discusses his impending demise. He never goes to a funeral if he can help it, but if he does go, it plunges him into a dismal reverie which lasts for hours after he’s home. At such times he says, ‘When I’m dead I don’t want a funeral. I want people to remember me alive.”
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