интервью с Патти из Mook Book

Do you remember the day Johnny, your first child, was born?
Yes, very well. Any mother would. Physically, childbirth is a torturous experience! [laughs].

Johnny's first name is really "John," the same as your husband's. Is Johnny formally known as "John Jr."?
No, my husband is John Jr., so Johnny would have been John III. However, we didn't like that idea. We named him just "John," and gave him a different middle name than his father's. [Note: Yes, the infamous "Garvin." Oh, my queendom for the follow-up question: Why "Garvin"?]

Before Johnny was born, did you and your husband discuss how you wanted to raise your children?
Since we both grew up in rather conservative families, we agreed that we wanted to let our children freely experience various things.

What was Johnny like as a child?
He was very quiet. And the way he could concentrate was different from other children. If you gave him a book, he would be completely absorbed in reading it from cover to cover. He was the same way when he watched movies or videos. Unlike other children, he would never become bored and start fidgeting. Instead, he would be lost in what he was watching, blocking out everything else around him until he was finished. In that sense, he was a very easy child to raise. His brother, Boz, also is quiet. Our house was very quiet even though we were bringing up two boys!

So Johnny was a child with extraordinary concentration?
Yes, he was, and that was just completely natural for him. He was never taught or forced to be like that.

I understand that Johnny rode horses when he was a child.
He did. My husband's family had a ranch where they kept horses. My husband also rode, so riding was familiar to us. Johnny was such a physically small child that he could not ride a regular-sized horse. He learned British riding, but there was no way for him to hold onto the saddle. He was supposed to hold the saddle tight with his legs, but he was too small to do that. So at first he practiced riding a pony. When he was 12 years old and began skating, we had a pony and talked about buying a trailer for it.

Will you tell me about Johnny when he began to learn skating?
My husband and I booked a group figure-skating class for him as a Christmas gift. During the practice time after the first lesson, he was skating forward and backward freely, and was trying bunny-hop jumps while the other children were all wobbling along the wall. That might have been because Johnny was a little older than the other children. At the second lesson, the instructor told us, "He doesn’t need group lessons anymore. Consider private lessons." We were told that a few lessons would be given free, so we took Johnny to a rink on a Sunday morning. After the private lesson, we were introduced to Pricilla Hill.

Was Johnny already fearless when he began figure skating?
There is only one thing he is afraid of: That he cannot fully exercise his ability. When he was about six years old, we had him in gymnastics. We thought it would be good for him to become physically strong because he was so small. But he was too small, really, with not much muscle, and he couldn't do anything well. After trying several times, he got angry with himself because he couldn't do it the way he wanted to. So I made him quit. There is one other thing that Johnny fears: He doesn't like to swim in the ocean. That might be my fault. Ever since I saw the movie Jaws, I have been really scared of being in the ocean.

Johnny told me that he was going to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean on vacation. Will he be all right there? [laughing]
[laughing] He loves shores and beaches. He just doesn't like to go into the ocean much! He has gone to Mexican resorts with Melissa [Gregory] and Denis [Petukhov]. Denis suggested that Johnny try scuba diving.