Sometimes People Smile Too
Just got home from a dinner honoring my parents - they should live and be well. What to write? It is a blessed gift to have the chance to publicly thank and praise your parents in their lifetime may they live and be well for many years to come.
When I practiced my speech I kept breaking down in tears - good tears. I went back, went deep. In the actual speech, G-d helped me edit and choose from my 15 paragraphs. And He helped me stay pretty composed. I'm told it was under 10 minute's and it seems that that old saying about words from the heart holds true.
Along with my parents a lovely young couple with 3 children were honored. (Perhaps I shouldn't share this. I never know. To me, a blog is a funny place resting somewhere between public, poetic, private, real, exposed, raw, polished and personal). The wife of the couple came over to me and said that I made her cry with my words about my parents and that she only hopes that one day her offspring will grow up and speak that way about her.
There were several moments tonight that scratched against my heart in the best way. I will, for now, try and keep the rest between me and G-d.
It's always a great joy to hang with my niece and nephews. They are up there on the list of fans of my comedy - especially my youngest nephew. He wanted jokes and I tired to provide.
I told him how I sometimes fill out forms and write my name: Neil. Then the form comes back and says Niel. And I wonder - do people look at the form and think: "Poor guy, can't spell his own name - we'll fix that for him."
How about when telemarketers call and ask "Is this Mister Flashamaineeee?" I say yes, and compliment them on their good judgement. Really - do they make bets, who can mispronounce in the most ridiculous way?" Do they think Flashamaineeee s a name?
How about the automated operators?
Machine: "Say yes or no."
Me: "Yes."
Machine: "Did you say no?"
Me: "I said yes, y-e-s, YES!!!"
Machine: "I'm sorry I'm not understanding you. Would you like to speak to an operator?"
Me: "Yes"
Machine: "Did you say no?" "If you said no, say yes."
(I refined that original routine as told it to my nephew and I like the way it came out.)
One woman came up to me after my speech and said - I was hoping you'd tell jokes, but guess you don't do that unless you get paid, huh? She should have just sat next to my nephew.
One of my niece and nephews' favorite routines is one I never really do on stage. It's about the many ways you can ruin a joke. We had a good time tonight plugging in different jokes and how to ruin them. I told them the story about the time that someone told me a joke for about half an hour that I already knew and that cold be told well in about 45 seconds. Maybe you know it? The punchline is "Sitting Shivah."
I am feeling good right now; proud and glad that my parents live inside me.
Quietly Courageous
They say it works
if you work it
and so we do
falling and rising
for ages, again
G-d takes pride
till one day
sometimes
people smile too
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 10:58 PM
6 Comments:
Kol Hakavod to your parents. Are you able to share with us what they were honored for, which organization honored them?
Thanks. It was ther Shul of fifty years' dinner; the Young Israel of Wndsor Park (recently renamed YI of Hollis Hlls/Windsor Park. They were honorees at the journal dinner.
Do they think Flashamaineeee s a name?
In Bombay who knows?
Liked the yes-no auto-phone routine.
How wonderful that you had the opportunity to publicly honor your parents with your heartfelt words -- in their presence.
I was thinking along those lines last night, but with some regret. My daughter was pulling out some snapshots of relatives to use in a school psychology project she's doing, and there was my late mom's smiling face. I thought of the eulogy I wrote and, somehow, was able to deliver for her at the church memorial service after she died in 1998, and how moved people were by it. And I wished that I could have said more of those things to her when she was alive.
However, I did once write a letter to my parents when I was in my late 20s and tell them what a happy childhood they had given me. Must count for something, right? :-)
The comments lately have touched me with great details of insight and kindness. Sometimes it's hard to keep up. I'm already leaking out the feelings and thoughts that will form the next post and still I'm wanting to reply.
Kishke, thanks. I hope I remember it and try out the routine on stage re the operators. I'm regularly coming up with new lines, but often I get on stage and push the button for the polished tried and true stuff...
Good point about Bombay. There's a great scene in that Albert Brooks movie where he goes to study humor in India. He gets a little office in a building where each cubicle houses operators for different American things. There's a computer operator and one for McDonalds and then there's one answering phones for the White House!
Thanking Anne for taking in my experience and being touched (lately the image comes to my mind that certain things don't touch us - thay scrape and scratch at us) by my words.
It's a rare blessing for these things to be said during a lifetime. I hear what you're saying big time.
You wrote: "I did once write a letter to my parents when I was in my late 20s and told them what a happy childhood they had given me."
I think that is BIG, counts for A LOT. (IMH - or maybe not so H - O)
One of my rebbeim used to make fun of people who liked to say in their humble opinion (even when they didnt really think their opinion was so humble) by punctuating his comments with"b'hirchavas da'ati ha'gadol". always cracked me up. Is the sitting shiva joke the joke about the intermarried couple and what happens when the parents meet?Brad
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