Sunday, May 20, 2007


Mi Papá, my father, Aquiles, picture on the right, was quite a storyteller and occasionally, he would skip the colorful wrappings of prose and get to the moral of the story at hand. But it was uncharacteristic of him, he would've made an ineffective preacher. Most of the time, the lessons to be learned were weaved within the tale, not too obvious, not easily distilled into "a central theme". That is why one had to listen closely and observe his facial mannerisms, and grasp the tone and tempo of his spoken words. A well told story has its own life and special meaning. Like it is often said of a good movie, one doesn't appreciate it until you've seen it at least twice. So it was, asi fue, with Papi's stories: sometimes I wouldn't get their significance until many days passed by. Or years! Especially the humorous ones. Though we disagreed on certain matters, especially during my youth, there is one "view point" that my father held quite deeply and being that today is a special time for me, my Mother, and seven siblings, since Papá passed away May 20, 2006, a year ago today, I thought I'd share that view with you.

I'll quote you the 10 or so-odd words from Papi that still ring true. In a minute. In the following post, further below. But first I gotta get a gripe out of the way. It's related, hang with me. If there's one word, one adjective, that has managed to climb to the top of my personal chart of grim, disgusting, super-used and over-used words, it has to be the word, "absolutely". Epecially when folks put an exclamation point ( ! ) right after that, regardless if its spoken or in an ad. As in, "Joe, is this a sure bet?", and Joe says, "Absolutely!", or "Will this product [put claim here --> _____ ] take care of all my problems?". Joe never hesitates and will usually cut you off before you finish your question by claiming, "Absolutely! Case closed." I don't mean to suggest to speechwriters, speakers, baseball heroes of days past, or WMDesque-politicians of today to strike the word from their vocabulary for always and always (perhaps maybe restrict your use of it to only twice in your public life?). The word "absolutely" has its place, so in the public interest and since blogs need to adhere to established literary standards at least once a year or so, I offer you the cite, Merriam-Webster Online's definition of the root word, Absolute:
1 a : free from imperfection : PERFECT b : free or relatively free from mixture : PURE c : OUTRIGHT, UNMITIGATED
2 : being, governed by, or characteristic of a ruler or authority completely free from constitutional or other restraint ; ... 4 : having no restriction, exception, or qualification

Tech-world denizens, see example: http://advice.cio.com/absolutely-the-expert

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