Quark,

Murray Gell-Mann was one of the kindest looking men you could ever see, and seemed very nice.

Richard Feyman was a character. I guess you know that. I think I heard him speak once, but I didn't really appreciate who he was. I have very little memory of him.

For the record, I also had the opportunity to meet Carl Sagan a couple of times and have brief conversations with him. OK, one of the conversations required me to run down the street and pull him out of a group colleagues he was going to dinner with. But but he was nice enough to speak with me for a minute or two before I had to give him back to his friends. (I'm not usually that pushy, but he was Carl Sagan!)

I once participated in a comedy writing workshop led by Robert (Bob) Dwan who had been Groucho's director on both radio and TV. Bob was a nice guy, but not funny at all, as I recall.

But Bob did get great guests for the workshop. They included George Carlin and Steve Allen. I saw Carlin standing alone before the workshop, so I went over to talk to him. He seemed wrapped up in his own thoughts, so I just told him I was looking forward to his talk. I could tell he really loved his craft because he was sitting back in his chair when he started talking but soon was leaning toward us as he spoke. One thing I remember is Carlin describing how a joke would evolve over time. It might start with a brief thought, and as he would retell it, he would add elements to it.

I don't remember all the guest, but Lotus Weinstock was one. She was a comedienne in her own right, but some people might know her as Lenny Bruce's girlfriend toward the end of his life. Another guest was Pete Barbutti, a frequent guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He was the most amazing in one way. He spoke for about 45 minutes, and it seemed to me that he never had to search for a word or say "ah" or "um".

Another guest I remember was Kip Adotta, who I think plays Las Vegas and similar venues. He told us that he never uses a joke unless it's logical. He gave as an example of a joke he didn't use for a year-and-a-half because it didn't make sense. It went something like this:

You know.. I don't believe in astrology or numberology or palm reading, so you may think it's strange, but I believe in wishing wells. The thing is, you have to know how to understand how a wishing well works. If you throw a penny into the wishing well, you should only wish for something worth a penny. If you want to wish for a car, you have to throw 7 or 8 thousand dollars into the wishing well.

He said he didn't use the joke for a yea-and-a-half, because it didn't make sense. Why throw thousands of dollars into the wishing well and hope for a car when you could go to the dealer and give them the money and drive off with the car.

You can tell how long ago this was by the prices. How long has it been since you could get a decent car for under $10,000 or anything for a penny.

I think the reason I remember the story might be because I came up with the answer in maybe 10 to 15 seconds. While he was explaining it to us, I leaned over to the person sitting next to me and whispered, "The wishing well has a better service department."