My mother married my father in 1956. She was twenty-eight, and he was thirty-one. She loved him with a fierce steadiness borne of loyalty, determination, and an unyielding dignity.

In the trunk of her car, my mother used to keep a collapsible easel, a clutch of brushes, a little wooden case stocked with tubes of paint, and, tucked into the spare-tire well, one of my father's old, tobacco-stained shirts, for a smock.

I have lots of memories of my father. He was an incredible father. We all loved him to death.

Before she married my father, my mother was a film reviewer for The Akron Beacon Journal - a small newspaper.

My mother was a great believer in reincarnation — she believed she and my father had been married many times before. She always said 'Next time, I'll be the artist and he'll do the rest.

Most people marry their mother. I married my father.