Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (July 25, 2015)

Patience and Fortitude

The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong, without comment.

… T.H. White

The Means to Success

The codfish lays ten thousand eggs,

The homely hen lays one.

The codfish never cackles

To tell you what she’s done.

And so we scorn the codfish,

While the humble hen we prize,

Which only goes to show you

That it pays to advertise.

An Apt Exchange

Two strangers were sitting in a train club car sipping their drinks, when one turned to the other and said, “I notice you have your arm in a sling. Accident?” “No,” said the other. “I broke it trying to pat myself on the back.” “What for?” asked the first. Responded the second, “For minding my own business.”

A Force to Be Reckoned with

I am full of wisdom, humor, tears, passion, and love.

I am that which is held tightly to the breast, lightly on the lap, peered at, sighed over, and remembered.

I bring you foolish fancies; I bring friendship to the lonely. I take you with me to the far reaches of the earth from India to China, to Mars, to Venus, and probe into the habits of chimpanzees.

I reach into your mind. I show you things that are unbelievable and make you believe them. You must treasure me, protect me: I give you a knowledge of life you never dreamed of. Don’t desecrate me. I fill the empty places of your life. I give myself to you gladly: seek me out and find me.

I am a BOOK.

What’s in a Name?

Lalaian: Persian in derivation, identified as a calling, a lala is a servant placed in charge of a boy or prince; a tutor; a pedagogue.

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CK Garabed

Weekly Columnist

C.K. Garabed (a.k.a. Charles Kasbarian) has been active in the Armenian Church and Armenian community organizations all his life. As a writer and editor, he has been a keen observer of, and outspoken commentator on, political and social matters affecting Armenian Americans. He has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Reporter and the AGBU Literary Quarterly, “ARARAT.” For the last 30 years, Garabed has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Weekly. He produces a weekly column called “Uncle Garabed's Notebook,” in which he presents an assortment of tales, anecdotes, poems, riddles, and trivia; for the past 10 years, each column has contained a deconstruction of an Armenian surname. He believes his greatest accomplishment in life, and his contribution to the Armenian nation, has been the espousing of Aghavni, and the begetting of Antranig and Lucine.

Latest posts by CK Garabed (see all)

• A Reminiscence: John Najarian - February 19, 2020
• Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Aug. 5, 2017) - August 7, 2017
• Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (July 22, 2017) - July 22, 2017