During the course of the interview my brother, Bruce, told me this short tale of a lesson he learned early in life.
Bruce's Ambrosia Story
The ambrosia [story] had to do with the honeysuckle that was in the back yard, to the left as you went out. You had to go up steps [to get from the back door to the yard].I had heard of ambrosia so I decided I was going to collect ambrosia and drink it as the gods had done. I didn't discern between nectar and ambrosia - I figured it was about the same thing so nectar would be [just the same as ambrosia].
I took one of those red liquor glasses that I think are still around. The heavy ones. And I gathered, I don't know, I probably stripped the honeysuckle bush. (And this is when maybe I was about nine or ten.) And I squeezed that little third of a drop out of all (the damndest thing I went through all) these flowers. And of course it probably evaporated as fast as I put it in.
After a whole afternoon of I work I had something like a third of an inch or not even a quarter of an inch of liquid at the bottom. I said, "Oh my God, I can't just drink this now. It would be too abrupt, you know, I've got to save this somehow, I've got to preserve this somehow." So I put it in the freezer and I was going to come back later when I was real ready and primed for this and drink ambrosia.
Well I came back to the freezer later, opened it up, and it had evaporated entirely (apparently from freezing). So at a very early age I learned that you can not preserve ambrosia. You've got to drink it right there!And you can't freeze it!
It was a very valuable lesson!
My brother lost a long battle with kidney cancer in 1997 but even in my last conversations with him I know that he never lost site of that valuable insight he gained so early in life.
