Uncle Garabed's Notebook (May 28, 2016)

A Right Hook

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

—Muhammad Ali

Hold On, There!

The name of the well-known Irish tune is Londonderry Air, not London Derriere.

Opportunity

Jones beset by stress and strife,

Begged this single boon of life:

“Give me half a chance!” Know what?

Half a chance was all he got!

—Anita Raskin

In a Manner of Speaking

The celebrated English clergyman and wit, Sydney Smith, was discussing the relative importance of two prominent men. “There is the same difference between their tongues,” he observed, “as between the hour and the minute hand on a clock. The one goes twelve times as fast, the other signifies twelve times as much.”

Conjecture

Alas! The things that are done in my name.

…Jesus of Nazareth

Sermons for Sale

Der Mgrdich, the new pastor of an Armenian Church, was to deliver his first sermon, and when the time came, he made the following prefatory remarks: “I have a five dollar sermon, a three dollar sermon, and a one dollar sermon. The trustees will now pass the plates to see which of those sermons the congregation wishes to hear.”

What’s in a Name?

Tembelyan: Turkish in derivation, identified as a descriptive term, tembel is defined as lazy.

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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.