Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (May 5, 2012)

In Search of Intelligence

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come:

Knock as you please, there’s nobody at home.

…Alexander Pope

Entry in an Autograph Album

God made candy

God made cake

But when He made you

He made a big mistake.

The Love that Surpasses All Understanding

Don’t disparage cannibals. After all, they do love people.

On Old Age

A man’s not old when his hair turns grey,

And a man’s not old when his teeth decay:

But he’s on his way to that final sleep,

When his mind makes appointments that his body can’t keep.

A Man of Many Words

Armen Babamian is an amazing fellow. He is not only an expert in the use of standard Armenian (Ashkharapar), and adept in the use of the Dikranagerd dialect (Parpar), but is highly familiar with classical Armenian (Krapar). On many an occasion he has in his jocular fashion rendered some common English or Armenian phrases in Krapar. For example, when urging a tardy friend to get a move on, he would render, “Shake your rear end” (polite form), as “sharzhatsoutsial zvorn ko.”

Perfect Example

Edo: What’s the difference between ignorance and apathy?

Bedo: I don’t know and I don’t care.

What’s in a Name?

Vanetsian/Vantsian: Armenian in derivation, identified as a location, Vanetsi and Vantsi are defined as a native of the city of Van.

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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