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From the book
chapter 20
One Simple Rule:
"If That Happens on Show Night, Just Keep Going!"
Early in 2002, John, Stella, and I took a trip to Florida to visit Disney World and see my sister Ann and her husband, Jim. Disney World with Stella was a blast, and I got to show her where Mommy swam around as a mermaid all those years ago in Splash, Too. We stayed in Naples at the Ritz-Carlton, and John had brought some scripts to read for the coming TV season. John always had a pile of prospective TV series scripts, sent by producers and writers, awaiting his perusal. He gave each production his consideration, although he had not been so keen on the idea of jumping back into a half-hour situation comedy. But now that he was the father of a young child again, he wanted a more predictable schedule than guest-starring and film roles afforded him. The world of sitcoms missed him, and John was opening up to the fact that maybe he missed them a little, too.
When we got to the hotel, John tossed a script for an ABC Disney family comedy into a beach bag along with four books and several magazines, and rushed Stella and me out the door with his famous "Here we go!" As I stood onshore with Stella in my arms, she took one look at the waves and started squirming with excitement. Thank God, John was a master at the art of sunscreen application. After all those summers of having to slather his three kids all at once, he had it down to a science--kid number four was not about to get the best of him.
He would gently turn Stella by the top of her head to face him, like he was opening a jar of pickles, and deftly pat dollops of SPF 50 over every inch of her exposed Ritter-pale skin, repeating the word "bink" with every dab. The ritual was inexplicably soothing, like the tranquilizing effect of massaging an alligator's stomach. John would then quickly rub in the sunscreen while laying out the rules of ocean safety, eye to eye, in a very serious tone, like he was the Mick to Stella's Rocky Balboa.
I took Stella out into the water, while John stretched out on the patchwork of hotel towels we had constructed for our headquarters. I saw him pick up the script for a show called 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. His first impression of it was that the title was way too long, and he told me later that he was actually expecting not to like it. John had been offered so many sitcom-dad roles that they all pretty much blended together, and he didn't have much hope that this one would be any better. I watched him give it a cursory read--as in, "bullshit, bullshit, my part"--and he was smiling and laughing to himself. But he didn't spend very much time on it before tossing it back in the beach bag and taking out a book from his ever-present collection of hardcover novels.
John had no qualms about bringing several books with him even on a short jaunt--history, fiction, suspense, biography, politics--not to mention (but I will, just this once) newspapers, comic books, cartoon compilations, graphic novels, Mad magazines, and anything else he could get his hands on. Home and abroad, a sizable collection of his partially read books and periodicals could be found in every room. Still, he would often take several trips to the local bookstore once we had reached our destination. Sometimes, he would finish one and give it away to whoever happened to be nearby in an attempt to lighten our luggage for the return trip. Upon returning home, however, he would more often than not go to our neighborhood bookstore to replace...
