What I have been reading lately #32

Eight is Enough by Tom Braden

I just finished reading Tom Braden's autobiographical book about parenting, Eight is Enough. Tom Braden was a newspaper columnist and publisher and also had a large family, including eight children. The book is about Braden's experiences being a father. The book served as the basis for the popular television show of the same name that was on the air in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Above: Tom Braden and his real-life family

Below: The Bradford family from the television show

While the book is very similar to the television show, there are some important differences:

• In the television show, the family's last name is changed from Braden to Bradford.
• In the book, the family lives in Virginia, Maryland, and southern California. In the television program, they live in Sacramento, California.
• In the television show, the mother (Joan) dies and is replaced by a step-mother (Abby). This was due to the unfortunate death of the actress playing the mother during the first season of the show and did not happen in the book.
• In the television show, Tom Bradford is pretty much a regular guy working as a columnist for a Sacramento newspaper. In the book, we find out that Tom Braden and his wife Joan were friends with such noted people as Robert Kennedy, Jack Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Jack Valenti, Yitzhak Rabin, William O. Douglas, Edward Bennett Williams, and Henry Kissinger.
• In the book, Braden is critical of the Nixon administration and tentatively accepts many of the counter-cultural changes that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The television show generally steered clear of such potentially controversial topics.

Above: Robert Kennedy

Below: Yitzhak Rabin

Below: Henry Kissinger talking on the telephone

One thing that is not mentioned in the book is the fact that Tom Braden was at one point a CIA operative and participated in anti-communist efforts as a journalist during the Cold War (including once publishing an article in the Saturday Evening Post entitled "Why I'm Glad the CIA is Immoral").

Below: The opening of Eight is Enough from Season Two. Notice that they have started using the signature theme song yet.

Idea for a televsion show #1

Chelsea have not gotten much this year out of Ukrainian striker Andrei Shevchenko, but he's given me a great idea for a television show. Shevchenko's son, Jordan, has as his godfather none other than former AC Milan president and current Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (for whom Shevchenko played for many years at Milan...) So here's the idea, or, rather, several different versions:



1. Sit-com: Shevchenko and his model/wife and all his extended relatives suddenly and tragically die at some sort of family reunion. His children, Jordan and Christian (and let's throw in a made-up girl-child just to balance it all out), have to go live with their godfather, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Imagine the hi-jinx as the Italian Prime Minister tries to raise three bratty kids while still running one of the world's most contentious democracies! (There's an American version in there, too - imagine if Ivan Rodriguez had asked G. W. Bush to be the godfather to his kids back when Rodriguez played for and G.W. owned the Texas Rangers - then imagine three darling Puerto Rican kids running around the White House, arguing over who gets to use the red phone, getting in Dick Cheney's way!)



2. Reality show: (I don't normally approve of this sort of thing...) Famous politicians are suddenly given custody of the children of dead professional athletes. Cameras follow them around to see what happens - braces, fights over the bathroom, trips to exotic foriegn locales, photo-ops with Henry Kissinger, etc.