Carl Reiner - How Paul Robeson Saved My Life and Other Stories

For Jake. Nick. Livia. and Romy

EVERY SUNDAY from the age of one, Corey Hammersberg-Carter and his parents drove from their modest home in Larchmont, New York, to Grandfather Charles Hammersbergs rolling, green estate in Holly Hill, Connecticut. At the weekly family dinner, Corey, starting at age two, addressed his maternal grandfather Hammersberg as Hampa Ham. The old man found it terribly amusing and laughed uproariously every time Corey referred to him as Hampa Ham. He enjoyed it so much that he insisted all his grandchildren address him that way. The older ones balked, complaining that it was babyish. They were quickly reminded by their parents that Grandpa was very old and very wealthy and it was in their best interests to call their grandfather whatever he wished to be called.

Corey recalled few things about these Sunday rituals except that he didnt like the food, his cousins, or sitting at the dinner table and listening to the same inspirational speech his grandfather insisted on delivering before dessert was served. It seemed like the chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream were given as payment for sitting through the tedious, seven-and-one-half-minute lecture.

When he was eight, to fight boredom, Corey started timing the speech with the stopwatch his grandfather had given him for Christmas. The speech at its shortest was seven minutes and thirty seconds. Each week, Corey would try to guess just how many seconds under or over it would be. As the years went on, the speech took longer and longer to deliver. By the time Corey was fifteen, the speech ran close to nine minutes. Corey knew the speech backward and forward and had once recited it backward to his shocked and furious parents. They withheld his allowance for two weeks and forbade him to do it again. Ever! Anywhere!

Corey had learned early on that his grandfather was a multi-multimillionaire and that all his relatives, including his father, were after his money. On the Sundays when they visited the old man, his father would insist that his mother wear her most attractive clothes.

Cynthia, darling, he remembered his father saying, why dont you wear your darker lipstick, it enhances your smile.

When Paul Carter had asked Mr. Hammersberg for the hand of his youngest daughter, Cynthia, he had received permission and an admonition. I will know by the bloom on my daughters cheeks and the smile on her lips just how loving and caring a husband you are.

From that day forward, Paul was careful not to do anything that would keep his wifes lips from smiling or her cheeks from blooming. It was fortunate he liked her well enough so that being a good and thoughtful husband was not too much of a burden.

At his eighty-fifth birthday party, Hampa Ham, who had not delivered his famed Hammersberg Address for five years, decided once again to bore his loyal family, but with a slower, muted version.

Corey, who could still recite it backward, found himself paying rapt attention. The speech, because of the old mans infirmities, timed out at nineteen minutes, but the salient points were all there.

Know what you want and go after it!

Timidity will get you nowhere.

People who are afraid to ask questions are people who live in the dark.

If there is someone who has something you want, ask him how he got itand then go out and do what he did!

When the old man promised that it was the last time he would make his Sunday speech, he was met by a chorus of insincere voices urging him to reconsider and assuring him that he would live forever. While the sycophantic din was at its apex, Corey asked his Hampa Ham if he might have a few moments alone with him.

His parents and relatives watched Corey and his grandfather sitting out on the veranda. The two seemed to be having a good visit. No one could hear what was being said, but the amount of laughter Corey provoked and the manner in which the two shook hands and embraced was quite disturbing to all the heirs and heiresses.

Hampa Ham passed away the following Sunday.

The reading of the will was held in the library of the Holly Hills mansion. Most of Charles Hammersbergs blood relatives were openly angry at what they learned. One nephews face turned beet-red as he sounded off at the grievous injustice he had been done by that selfish old bastard who bored us to shit every Sunday preaching that damned sermon.

Cynthia Carter was saddened by her fathers death, but quite pleased at her sons extreme good fortune. She did wonder why her father had chosen to award Corey ten million dollars when she was bequeathed but five million and her husband only a hundred thousand and an old Packard touring car. In the quiet of their bedroom, Paul insisted that it was they who were responsible for their sons windfall inheritance. It was they who had taught him his good manners and courteous behavior. Cynthia suggested that perhaps Corey himself had played a part in winning the huge inheritance. She reminded Paul of how their son had utterly endeared himself to her father when he had mangled the pronunciation of his name.

Nobody in the history of the universe ever gave a person ten million dollars for accidentally inventing a silly nickname like Hampa Ham, Paul argued. It was the upbringing that did it!

In fact, it was neither the painstaking parenting nor the cute baby talk that had tilted the scales in Coreys favor. It was the admissions he had made to his grandfather on that fateful last Sunday. He had admitted to his Hampa Ham how, when he was young, he had dreaded coming to the Sunday dinners knowing that he would have to suffer through a boring lecture before getting his cake and ice cream. He told how, to keep his sanity, he started to time the speech and try to guess its length. He told too how he had memorized The Hammersberg Address and had amused himself by learning to say it backward. He demonstrated his ability to do this and was surprised when his grandfather laughed and asked that he do it again.

Corey then admitted that the speech had absolutely no meaning to him until today.

When I heard you speak today, Corey said, I felt that you were talking to me. Im eighteen now and I know what I want to do with my life. I want to be like you, Hampa Ham, a multi-multimillionaire. In your speech you say, Timidity will get you nowhere!And You live in the dark if you dont ask questions, and If there is someone who has what you want, ask them how they got it and go do what they did. Well, Hampa Ham, Im asking. How did you get to be a multi-multimillionaire?

The old man, rasping and wheezing, told of a man whom he had much admired.

My uncle Zeke, smart manwent to South America, discovered a tin mine, and became rich manufacturing cans. When I turned seventeen he asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told him, I want to be rich like you. I asked him to give me a hundred thousand dollars and he did. I invested it in a lot of things, Coca-Cola, blue-chip stocks, long-term federal bonds. I made a fortune.

Corey, inspired by the story, explained that a hundred thousand dollars then was more like a million today and asked if he could have a million dollars. The old man shook his head and said that he was pleased that his grandson had learned something from the lecture and requested Corey say it backward one more time.

When Corey finished, the old man laughed, kissed his grandson on the cheek, and informed him that his arithmetic was wrong.

Son, a hundred thousand back then was more like ten million today.

So Corey asked for ten million

LANCE BENSEN pushed the button for the twentieth floor then quickly pressed the door-open button when he saw her coming down the hall. His heart stopped and his eyelids locked open as he stared at the apparition coming toward the elevator.