I wish I was better at explaining things…
Enjoy!
Posted in Children, Culture, Entertainment, Family, father, Full Text, Humor, life, Personal, Quote, random, teacher, Thoughts
Tagged Albert Einstein, Children, Culture, Einstein, Einstein Quotes, Entertainment, Explanation, Explaning, Family, Father and Son, Favorites, Funny, Humor, life, Personal, Quote, random, Six Year-old, teacher, Thoughts, Understanding
I find I am growing old and hope more than anything that I have made a difference in the lives of those with whom I have lived and loved.
I had a professor once who said, “When you choose to invest your life in others, it will screw up your life… but, at least your life will be interesting.”
I believe my life has been interesting.
Here is an excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit (by Margery Williams), a wonderful children’s book about becoming real (long before Toy Story 1, 2, or 3). I like to think that as I’m getting older, I’m becoming real:
HERE was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the Boy’s stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming.
There were other things in the stocking, nuts and oranges and a toy engine, and chocolate almonds and a clockwork mouse, but the Rabbit was quite the best of all. For at least two hours the Boy loved him, and then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, and there was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit was forgotten.
For a long time he lived in the toy cupboard or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon every one else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons and lost most of his paint, caught the tone from them and never missed an opportunity of referring to his rigging in technical terms. The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn’t know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles. Even Timothy, the jointed wooden lion, who was made by the disabled soldiers, and should have had broader views, put on airs and pretended he was connected with Government. Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse.
The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him…
For full text and illustrations go here to Digital Library
Enjoy!
Posted in books, Children, life, Personal, reading, Relationships, Thoughts
Tagged Aging, books, Children, friends, Getting Older, investing in others, life, Literature, Making a Difference, Margery Williams, Personal, reading, Real, Relationships, Success, The Velveteen Rabbit, Thoughts
As a child, I had an annoying uncle who would make a grab at my face, make a fist with his thumb sticking out a little bit between his fingers, and then say “I’ve got your nose.” If you’ve ever experienced that unamusing game, here’s a bit of a twist:
Enjoy!
Posted in Children, Christmas, Entertainment, Family, Humor, life, random, Uncategorized
Tagged Children, Christmas, Deer, Deer stealing Snowman's Nose, Entertainment, Family, Funny, Humor, life, photo, random, Snowman
Hey, here’s a handy little flow chart to help you with your food dilemma:
Enjoy!
When I was in high school, I loved to listen to Alice Cooper, yet somehow I missed this episode of the Muppets:
Enjoy!
Posted in Children, Culture, Entertainment, Halloween, Humor, Media, Music, random, video, youtube
Tagged Alice Cooper, Children, Culture, Entertainment, Funny, Halloween, Humor, Media, Music, Music Video, random, The Muppets, video, Welcome to my Nightmare, youtube
I saw this on twitpic and thought some of you might enjoy it as well. Here’s to us – the future our parents worried about:
Enjoy!
A good thought about making your life count (from vi.sualize).
Even worse than straight to video might be the cutting room floor:
Enjoy!
Posted in Children, Culture, goals, Humor, life, Personal, random, Relationships, Thoughts
Tagged Children, Culture, Encouragement...sort of, goals, Humor, life, Life as a Movie, Living, Motivation, Personal, random, Relationships, Thoughts
I like odd things and this little poem qualifies (I found it here). Think The Jabberwocky:
The Author’s Tale
‘Twas potter, and the little brown
Did simon and schuster in the shaw;
All mosby were the ballantines,
And the womraths mcgraw.
“Beware Jovanovich, my son!
The knopfs that crown, the platts that munk!
Beware the doubleday, and shun
The grolier wagnallfunk!”
He took his putnam sword in hand,
Long time the harcourt brace he sought;
So rested he by the crowell tree
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in harper thought he stood,
Jovanovich, with eyes of flame,
Came houghton mifflin through the wood
And bowkered as it came!
Dodd mead! Dodd mead! And from his steed
His dutton sword went kennicatt!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went quadrangling back.
“And hast thou slain Jovanovich?
Come to my arms, my bantam boy!
Oh, stein and day! Giroux! McKay!”
He scribnered in his joy.
‘Twas potter, and the little brown
Did simon and schuster in the shaw;
All mosby were the ballantines,
And the womraths mcgraw.
– Anonymous
Enjoy!