She preferred a gentler portrait of my father. She would tell the story of when he arrived to accept his Phi Beta Kappa
key in his favorite outfit-jeans and an old knit shirt with a leopard-print pattern. "Nobody told him it was this big honor,
so he walked in and found everyone standing around this elegant room dressed in tuxedos. The only time I ever saw
him embarrassed."
And Gramps, suddenly thoughtful, would start nodding to himself "It's a fact, Bar," he would say. "Your dad could
handle just about any situation, and that made everybody like him. Remember the time he had to sing at the
International Music Festival? He'd agreed to sing some African songs, but when he arrived it turned out to be this big
to-do, and the woman who performed just before him was a semi-professional singer, a Hawaiian gal with a full band
to back her up. Anyone else would have stopped right there, you know, and explained that there had been a mistake.
But not Barack. He got up and started singing in front of this big crowd-which is no easy feat, let me tell you-and he
wasn't great, but he was so sure of himself that before you knew it he was getting as much applause as anybody."
My grandfather would shake his head and get out of his chair to flip on the TV set. "Now there's something you can
learn from your dad," he would tell me. "Confidence. The secret to a man's success."
key in his favorite outfit-jeans and an old knit shirt with a leopard-print pattern. "Nobody told him it was this big honor,
so he walked in and found everyone standing around this elegant room dressed in tuxedos. The only time I ever saw
him embarrassed."
And Gramps, suddenly thoughtful, would start nodding to himself "It's a fact, Bar," he would say. "Your dad could
handle just about any situation, and that made everybody like him. Remember the time he had to sing at the
International Music Festival? He'd agreed to sing some African songs, but when he arrived it turned out to be this big
to-do, and the woman who performed just before him was a semi-professional singer, a Hawaiian gal with a full band
to back her up. Anyone else would have stopped right there, you know, and explained that there had been a mistake.
But not Barack. He got up and started singing in front of this big crowd-which is no easy feat, let me tell you-and he
wasn't great, but he was so sure of himself that before you knew it he was getting as much applause as anybody."
My grandfather would shake his head and get out of his chair to flip on the TV set. "Now there's something you can
learn from your dad," he would tell me. "Confidence. The secret to a man's success."