Posted on 01/15/2004 2:29:50 PM PST by billorites
He's a hardheaded penny-pincher, she's a publicity-shy doctor. PEOPLE magazine sat down with Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean, 55, and his wife, Judy, 50, for their first joint interview. Read 17 things we learned about him, then peruse the exclusive transcript.
1. He calls his wife "sweetie"; she calls him "Howie."
2. He wore his prom tuxedo to one of President Clinton's White House state dinners to save money, but coughed and split his pants and had to be escorted home by state troopers covering his posterior.
3. His staff forced him to buy a new suit at Paul Stuart in New York for the campaign (it cost $800). "It nearly killed me."
4. He always turns off the lights when he walks out of a room. He used to get into fights with his wife about turning up the heat in the winter, so now she pays the bill so he doesn't have to see it.
5. The last sitcom he watched was All in the Family in its original run.
6. He is compulsive about recycling. Once he picked up every newspaper off an airplane at the end of a flight and hauled them to a recycling center. He also does recycling inspections of his staffer's bins.
7. He insists that paper in his office be printed on both sides.
8. He likes Outkast and Wyclef Jean (his son's music) as well as Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Led Zeppelin and the Grateful Dead.
9. He fixes the toilet at home; plumbing is his "therapy."
10. He never takes taxis or limos. In New York City he takes the subway.
11. Asked his favorite food indulgence, he responds: fish. (He later amends this to chocolate chip cookies.)
12. He drinks generic ginger ale and snacks to save money.
13. He plays the guitar and harmonica. He sings '60s folk tunes (see: Peter, Paul and Mary above.)
14. Despite his reservations about cost, he was finally persuaded to take his shirts to the dry cleaner last year. He used to just throw them in the wash.
15. As the governor of Vermont, he drove himself and pumped his own gas.
16. He has been known to tape his shoes together.
17. He wears '70s-style gold-rimmed glasses that he won't update; his wife carries a purse covered in pen marks. They are both devoted discount shoppers ...
Is an enema bag his therapist?
Actually four times. Didn't you see the thing about using both sides of the paper?
Ah yes, "The Witch of Wall Street". Didn't her son (her only child) end up losing his leg b/c instead of taking him straight to the doctor, she ran around NYC in search of a free clinic?
GWB would have gotten lambasted for this. In fact, didn't Bush get nailed in the press for not having seen a movie in years??
Oh, I was reading replies with that excerpt all copied and ready to paste. That is exactly what I noticed.
But with Dean I'm sure the media will sigh about how he is focused on more important things than mere tv entertainment. You're right, with President Bush it is portrayed as being "out of touch".
Can't blame either man (even Howard Dean!) for not watching sitcoms.
Yeah, well put.
Has a normal daughter too. That's to their credit.
16. He has been known to tape his shoes together.
I wish that I knew how to use Photshop. I'd love to see a pic of howie in a 60's era prom tux with a duct taped shoe.
Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort. "Farewell to Thee" being played in the background on Hawaiian guitar. Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable. Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah? Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah. Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine? MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea. GC: A cup ' COLD tea. EI: Without milk or sugar. TG: OR tea! MP: In a filthy, cracked cup. EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper. GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth. TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor. MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness." EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof. GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING! TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor! MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph. EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US. GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake! TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road. MP: Cardboard box? TG: Aye. MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt! GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY! TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife. EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah." MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'. ALL: Nope, nope..
and his crack showing.
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