God, if You're Not Up There . . . (30 page)

A
few weeks later, I was at Yankee Stadium with my friend Julie. She texted Michael Kay, the Yankees announcer, that I was there. Next thing I know, I’m looking at the Jumbotron—Al Roker, then David Gregory from
Meet the Press
, and then my face is one hundred feet tall overlooking the stadium. How cool is that?

I do have to keep going to meetings, and I do have to keep examining my thoughts, but I’m happy a lot of the time. And no more drinking, hopefully.

But free? I don’t know. I’ll be on my deathbed—many, many, many years from now—trying to make out the faces of my nearest and dearest through the fog of my imminent demise, and I’ll say, “Well, I guess this is it. I’ll see you on down the road.” And the nurse will lean in and say, “Now say it like Bill Clinton.”

Photographic Insert

When I was about seven years old, I finally discovered a way to connect with my mother. I noticed that if I could get her talking about certain people in the neighborhood, she would become enraptured doing impressions of them. Doing my best to copy what she did, I learned to do voices too. If for nothing else, she seemed to love me for that.

My father, Max, was sent to Germany an eighteen-year-old second lieutenant, the youngest commissioned officer in the history of the U.S. military at the time, or so he was told. He came home with a lot of medals and a tortured soul.

He still harbored plans to play professional baseball and go to law school after the war, but then he and my mother got married in Sylvester, Georgia, in 1947, so he had to work to support his wife.

Three years later, my Dad (
center
) was called back for duty in Korea. A week after that he shipped.

Between the ages of twelve and fourteen, if I wasn’t playing baseball, I was dreaming about it. Every day, the second I woke up, I wanted a bat in my hand. That cocky blond kid on the top left is me during the All-Star game in the Babe Ruth League. Sometimes before going out to do an SNL sketch, I’d think about the two doubles I hit off of C. P. Yarborough (
2nd from right, rear
) in one night.

Working at the University of Florida radio station on a series about suicide prevention. I interviewed students who had attempted to kill themselves as well as health professionals commenting on why people do it. A congressman was going to hold a press conference about it, but it was cancelled at the last minute when the spots were deemed too disturbing to air.

Photo courtesy of Michael Kooren

In the 1980s, I sometimes hit the road with a kid named Billy Gardell, who now stars in the sitcom
Mike & Molly
. He was only eighteen then, but he already wrote brilliant stuff.

Outside the doors to Studio 8H, getting ready for rehearsal. The first time I did Clinton biting his bottom lip and giving the thumbs-up on air, the audience loved it. After that, anytime I got a Clinton script, it would include a note, “Does the thumb and lip thing.”

Credit: Mary Ellen Matthews / Courtesy of Broadway Video Enterprises and NBC Studios, Inc.

Monica was a great kisser.

Mrs. Clinton sent this photo after I appeared as the president’s clone at the 1997 White House Correspondents Dinner. The inscription reads: “To Darrell Hammond with thanks for filling in the last few months—that’s our secret!”