Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Nov. 28, 2015)

A Gasser

“It was in Chicago, also, that I remember a poor man being carried off with an epileptic fit. This happened after I had recited the sleepwalking scene from Lady Macbeth. Telling the story afterwards to Miss Ethel Barrymore, she looked greatly impressed. ‘What a compliment!’ she said to me.”

… From Edith Sitwell’s autobiography

Tombstone Humor

Poor Martha Snell, she’s gone away,

She would if she could, but she could not stay;

She’d two bad legs, and a baddish cough,

But her legs it was that carried her off.

Brave Words

The heroic harangue which the great Henri, Marquis de la Rochejaquelein, used to his soldiers was couched in these words—“If I advance, follow me; if I retreat, kill me; if I die, revenge me.”

A Back-handed Toast

Here’s to the comedian’s very good health. May he live to be as old as his jokes.

From My Persian Dictionary

Búsah: kiss

Chákú: pen-knife

Zarb: knock (blow)

Ma´rifat: knowledge

Hunar:           ”

Shughl: labor (work)

Nardubán: ladder

What’s in a Name?

Taneian: Turkish in derivation, identified as an occupation, tane is a truncation of tanekermaz (tane: grain, seed; kurmuz: red) therefore, defined as a cultivator of red grain.

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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