Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Nov. 6, 2010)

Double Vision

To have another language is to possess a second soul.
      …Charlemagne

From the Trivia File

The sunflower does not turn to the sun. On the same stem may be seen flowers in every direction, and not one of them shifts the direction in which it has first opened. Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, says:

      The sunflower turns on her god when he sets
      The same look which she turned when he rose.

This may do in poetry, but it is not correct. The sunflower is so-called simply because the flower resembles a picture sun.

On Ernest Hemingway

 [The Sun AlsoRises is about] bullfighting, bullslinging, and bull–.
   …Zelda Fitzgerald

A Toast

To Mom’s cooking:

May my wife never find out how bad it really was.

Foot in Mouth Disease

President Theodore Roosevelt (to a political gathering in Maine): Is there a democrat in the audience?

Old man (Rising): I’m a democrat.

Roosevelt: Why?

Old man: My father was a democrat and my grandfather was a democrat.

Roosevelt: So, if your father had been a horse thief, and your grandfather had been a horse thief, you would be a horse thief?

Old man: Oh, no; in that case I would be a Republican.

What’s in a Name?

Aydinian: Arabic/Turkish in origin, identified as a geographical location, Aydin is a city in southwest Anatolia; thus a native of that city. If pronounced Aydun, defined as light; moonlight. bright; luminous; clear; brilliant, enlightened, intellectual.

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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