Him to make something of himself, to work and work and work and, as a consequence, to succeed. Dead now, she remains in his thoughts, blunt and sarcastic, exhorting This good woman - a Louvre of cliches, it is true, and some of them masterpieces - is goad, critic and inspiration to her son. There are two heroes in this book, neither of them Mr. ''The Good Times'' is a superb autobiography, wonderfully told, often hilarious, always intelligent and unsparing.

Russell Baker, warbling on perfect pitch. That's a fair sample of the full-throated a comic-strip intellectual, a human pomposity dilating on his constitutionalĭuty, a drum thumper on a demagogue's bandwagon, a member of the claque for this week's fashion, part of next week's goon squad that will destroy it.'' Well. ''What is a newspaperman? A peeper, an invader of privacy, a scandal peddler, a mischief-maker, a busybody. I did not know that Russell Baker of The New York Times, ornament of the reporter's trade, 36 years old in 1961, wanted to bail out - tired ''of sitting on marble floors, waiting for somebody I did not then suspect that the nonchalance and composure I so admired Slipped from Senate cloakroom to Senate hideaway, sharing jokes with powerful men old enough to be their fathers. It was thrilling to watch them, the regulars, so nonchalant, so composed as they If I could get close to Russell Baker, I would know what was going on and I would not embarrass myself and the mighty news magazine I worked for. I thought, if only I could get close to Russell Baker. Dirksen would say something and the reporters would guffaw. Would often hold little informal press conferences on the Senate floor, mostly banter and inside jokes.

Senator Mike Mansfield, the majority leader, and Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen, the minority leader, I found its language opaque, as subtle as Arabic. I knew nothing of Congress beyond the usual propaganda. N the spring of 1961 I was working in the Washington bureau of Newsweek, assigned to cover ''The Hill,'' Congress. Still Growing Up: A Reporter's Journey By WARD JUST

Growing Up by Russell Baker