Uncle Garabed’s Notebook

Roman Proverb
He destroys his health by laboring to preserve it.
—Virgil

Lo! The Prophet
We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy—sun, wind, and tide. … I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.
—Thomas Edison in conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone (1931)

Doing His Job
And then there’s the story, allegedly true, of a famous orchestra conductor (who shall remain unnamed here) who almost had a fit when, during the execution of Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No.3, the offstage trumpet call concluded abruptly. Upon conclusion of the piece, he rushed to the wings ready to throttle the guilty trumpeter, when to his consternation, he found the man in the clutches of a burly watchman who was berating him, “I told you that you can’t blow that thing here; there’s a concert going on inside!”

Sagacity
This is no time for making new enemies.
—Voltaire (on being asked, on his deathbed, to renounce the Devil.)

Entry in an Autograph Album
The more we study, the more we know.
The more we know, the more we forget.
The more we forget, the less we know.
So, why study?

What’s in a Name?
Jazmadarian (T) var. of jizmedar: possessing a shoe with a sharp nose; also var. of chizmedar: top boot, Wellington; house or factory; also var. of yazmadar: possessing, holding an embroidered kerchief; scarf wearer.

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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