© 2008 -- 2011 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic. All rights reserved.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

I got an award


This award came from LegalMist (thank you, LegalMist) while I was out of the office, and it also came with a set of rules. But I don't have to follow them.
Here are the original rules:
• List 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!
• pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap.
But since LegalMist is an attorney, she made a compelling argument for changing the rules. Here are the new ones:
1. Follow the original rules if you like, or these amended rules if you prefer.
2. Post the award on your site if you want to.
3. Write some honest things about yourself if you want to. Make them interesting even if you have to dig deep.
4. Pass the award along if you want to, to any number of other bloggers from 1 to 10.
So technically I'm done, but that's not really keeping with the spirit of the award, so I'll make a stab at saying some honest things about myself.
1) I've got a good sense of humor and a quick wit, and I can make you smile or have a whole room full of people laughing without even trying. But I am no good at humor on demand. If you expect me to make you laugh (or if I think you expect me to make you laugh or if you look like I think you expect me to make you laugh) you'll probably have a jollier time reading Macbeth's soliloquy lamenting the passing of his wife. I once was invited to give a speech to a college club made up of economics students. The topic was exploring alternative careers. (I understand economics majors do that almost as much as English majors do.) I wanted to be entertaining and make the audience laugh without getting too far off topic, so I told my diving story that I had told a couple weeks earlier to a class of freshman English students. In the classroom it worked perfectly because I wasn't really trying to make the students laugh. I was teaching by analogy, and they forgot they were in a class they didn't want to be in and had a good time. The economics students, though, just sat there and stared. The next day I went into the English class. One of my students had been at the meeting and I heard another student asking her how I had done. When she said I told the diving story the first student asked, "Did they laugh?" "Not so much," was all the student who'd been there said.
2) I once introduced myself at a poetry reading celebrating Black poetry during Black History month by saying, "I'm not Black. And I'm not a woman."
3) I write because I think there is something very wonderful about making people cry. When I was eight or nine, I was sitting on the porch at my grandparents' house with my cousin who was a year younger than me. She asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I said I wanted to write books about Jesus. She clapped her hands together and said "How wonderful. My mother will read them and cry." I was hooked. What could be better than putting down words on paper that made people cry?
4) I had my first kiss at age five. I was sitting on the couch with the little girl who lived across the street. (Her name was Peggy, and she was also five. We went to the same kindergarten.) I had a book in my hand and was reading it to her (or maybe making the story up as I went along). Right in the middle of a sentence, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. I looked at her and leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Then she ran into the kitchen to tell my mother what we had done.
5) I like to dance. Not very meaningful, and I'm not really that good at it, but it's honest.
6) I don't know which is the bigger incentive for writing -- making people cry or getting kissed.
So that's enough about me. Let's talk about you. Anyone who comes here to read what I post or what other people say about it deserves this award. So please, consider yourself a recipient of the honest scrap award. And have a wonderful 2009.


14 comments:

  1. Number 6 on your list would make you somewhat of a Georgie Porgie! :)

    Thank you for sharing some honest scrap about yourself.

    I like the fact that you are an honest but not very meaningful dancer. That's rare these days :)

    Peace - Rene

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  2. I like your reason for writing. Nice scraps!

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  3. Wonderful, Grandpa.
    A word I over-use but warranted here for sure. "Getting kissed, making people cry" Yep, I'm hooked too!
    So glad to have you in my Ohana as we journey into this new year of fears & amazing hopes! Aloha-

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  4. Being funny...it's a curse really.(not that I would know) I think it's always best to sort of "roll with it". That makes you both charming and witty-and if you get a laugh out of someone, once, then you've done a good job.

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  5. Very cool award. And I thoroughly enjoyed reading through your six things! :)

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  6. well that's out in the open eh? you're like myself- I never tag specifically- I leave it up to the person- but honestly
    This one has clout!
    Thank you for sharing!
    5 eh? must mean that you're a romantic by heart!
    the dancing thing can always be upgraded at any age! :)

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  7. Oh this was really cute..
    reading it all..
    I akways thought writin to make people laugh was superior than the sentimental stuff which I am more inclined to, but you have changed my world!!
    Thanks for writing this!

    :)

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  8. I probably would've been laughing hysterically out loud amongst the silent economics majors.

    the best laughter causes tears and vice versa

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  9. It's hard to do things on command like make people who find demand curves intriguing, laugh. Economists aren't by nature, but surely now, given the state of our markets, they're getting a lot of work and having the last laugh after all- even the dead ones- Keynes and Smith haven't had this much press since Reaganomics!

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  10. enjoyed the honesty and the humor that you probably didn't intend to portray.. ;) oh, and thanks for visiting my little blog as well! :D i'm pretty random, so ya never know what you'll get from one day to the next!

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  11. I loved it! AND I wish I could sit and hear you speak--funny or not---

    HOWEVER, I may cry...but NO KISSING! YOU HEAR ME? NOT GONNA HAPPEN! But crying--definite possibility!

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  12. Just from this short visit to your blogsite, I can see why she kissed you.

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  13. I don't know how I missed this when you posted it. But you did a beautiful job.

    And I clicked & read the diving story -- awesome! I used to love the high dive when I was a kid. But I recently climed the ladder at the local pool and completely chickened out and climbed down again, even though my daughter was laughing at me. I just couldn't do it. And the lifeguard did not give me any advice -- just laughed as I climbed down the ladder.

    But I'm inspired! Perhaps I'll take your lifeguard's advice next time I'm at a pool with a high dive, and will try again.

    Thanks for sharing!

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