Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (June 11, 2011)

Chinese Proverb

I have brought nothing back but Honeim’s shoes signifying “Mine has been a fruitless errand.” The tale is that an Arab went to one Honeim to buy a pair of shoes, but after the usual haggling, he said they were too dear, and left the stall. Honeim knew the road the man would take and, running on in advance, dropped one of the shoes on purpose. Presently up came the man, saw the shoe in the road, and said, “How marvelously like is this to Honeim’s shoes! If now I could find the fellow, I would pick up this.” So he looked all about, but without success, and passed on. In the meantime Honeim had run half a league further, and dropped the other shoe, and when the Arab came to the spot and saw it, he regretted that he had not picked up the first shoe. Tying his camel to a tree, he ran back to fetch it. On returning to the place again, he found his camel had been stolen, and when he arrived at home and was asked what he had brought back, he replied, “Nothing but Honeim’s shoes.”

Thinking Inside the Box

Many people read only that with which they agree, as though they are in need of reinforcing their weak convictions.

No Change

One day an acquaintance asked Nasreddin, “Khoja, Effendi, how have you fared with the passing of the years?”

“Rather well,” he replied. “My strength today is the same as it was in my youth.”

“How so?”

“Well, you see that big rock over there? I cannot lift it now, and in my youth I couldn’t lift it either.”

What’s in a Name?

Zinzalian: Armenian in derivation, identified as a descriptive term, tsndzal is defined as to be happy, merry, joyous.

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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
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