REVIEW: About Your Father and Other Celebrities I Have Known by Peggy Rowe
Peggy Rowe is at it again—this time giving a hilarious inside look at growing up Rowe, both before and after Mike’s rise to fame.
Since the day they said, “I do,” Peggy’s previous “doting” lifestyle met with her husband John’s minimalistic ways and became the backdrop for years of adventure and a quirky sense of humor because of their differences. From thoughts of wearing headlamps in the house to save energy, to squeezing out the last drop of toothpaste with a workbench vise, Peggy learned to pick her battles and celebrate the hilarity in each situation.
Once their boys were born, woodstove mishaps and garbage dumping tales were the seed for Mike’s obsession with doing dirty jobs and the comical presence he is known for today.
As Mike rose to fame, Peggy was his biggest fan—who gave motherly advice and constructive criticism, of course. She baked cookies for Mike to take to Joan Rivers for a Christmas party hostess gift, and even wrote fan letters under faux names and mailed them from different cities to Mike’s producer.
By the time Mike hits it big, Peggy and John retire to face more adventures, with a lightning strike in their condo, an elderly friend who ate marijuana leaves, and entering into celebrity status by making Viva paper towel and Lee jeans commercials, plus so much more.
Peggy’s stories relive the details that intrigue and entertain old and new fans alike. So if you want a bigger, even funnier take on the Rowe family, About Your Father and Other Celebrities I Have Known delivers.
Review
What fun! Peggy Rowe has a subtle yet wicked sense of humor and a way of telling a story. Plus she can dish some mother’s guilt on her famous son by including her phone number in a communication to him “just in case he’s lost it.” She also reminds me of my other in the way she refers to Mike’s online fans as “his little Facebook friends.” Here she tells the story of her married life, raising three Rowe sons, and staying happily married to John for over sixty years. She never sugar coats anything nor lets her memories blur or get misty eyed yet she finds the humor in most things and sneaks in zingers that had me laughing.
I don’t remember exactly when it happened—my transition from anxious, overprotective mother to world-weary showbiz mom. I just know that when I turned on the television one night and saw my firstborn stripped to the waist and standing in fresh manure with his arm up the rear end of a bull, I didn’t reach for a Valium. I merely shook my head and wondered for the hundredth time, Where did I go wrong?
Now I need to go back and read her first book about her mother. B+
~Jayne
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