Uncle Garabed's Notebook (Dec. 19, 2015)

Italian Proverb

Think much, speak little, and write less.

Wit of a Dandy

When the celebrated Beau Nash was ill, Dr. Cheyne wrote a prescription for him. The next day the doctor, coming to see his patient, inquired if he had followed his prescription. “No, truly, doctor,” said Nash; “if I had, I should have broken my neck, for I threw it out of the bedroom window.”

On a Puritanicall Lock-Smith

A zealous Lock-Smith dyed of late,

And did arrive at heaven gate,

He stood without and would not knocke,

Because he meant to picke the locke.

… William Camden

A Toast to Parables

When Christ turned water into wine

There were no drys to scold and whine;

Today prohibitors would rail

And send the Son of God to jail.

The Falcon

A certain Roman lady, in the days of Pompey the Great, was courted by a knight, whose joy of joys was to be near his lady-love. One day he craved of her a falcon which sat on her wrist, and she gave it him. He was so taken up with this bird that he discontinued his visits to the lady, and she sent for him. The knight came with the falcon on his wrist, and the lady said to him, “Let me touch my old favourite;” but no sooner was it in her hand than she wrenched its head off, and said to the knight, “Grieve not at what I have done. That falcon weaned thy love from me, and caused thee to offend: now that I have killed it, I shall again enjoy thy presence.” And it was so.

… Gesta Romanorum

What’s in a Name?

Shoushanian: Armenian in derivation, identified as a flower, shoushan is defined as lily.

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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.