My Dad's No-Fail Knock 'Em to Sleep Bedtime Story [Hand Dryers]
Sometimes we dads tell a bedtime story to perk up special times of year, like Hanukkah, Christmas, or Kwanzaa. More often, we read to our children at their request. Kids love hearing our stories — and they particularly love having our full attention. It's nice for us too — we get to enjoy having our kids' rapt attention while they're still, quiet, dreamy and lost in a world of imagination that we're inhabiting together.
But occasionally, we dads have ulterior motives. Sometimes we swing into the bedtime story saddle in order to get the job done: knock 'em unconscious so we can go about the rest of our evening!
In the days when Rocky and Bullwinkle's metal-munching mice were just beginning to eat the TV aerials off the rooftops of American families — I mean the early 1960s — my own father's motivation was definitely the latter. He was up to something.
When I was very young my daddy would tell me stories intended to knock me dead asleep — of course I didn't realize this at the time — I simply loved getting lost in his telling of them. He called them "Geeragos and Mardiros" stories.
"Geeragos" and "Mardiros" are pronounced like this: GEAR-ah-ghos[t] (like the word "ghost" sans "t") and MARDY-ros (sounding like the American name "Marty" and ros, rhyming with ghost-sans-t.) In other words, the two brothers' names rhyme. The most effective of these stories went like this:
The two mythic Armenian boys lived "in town," [meaning Fresno,] at the time a small collocation of wood clapboard houses very near two bakeries.
Somehow, Geeragos and Mardiros would secure fishing poles on a fine summer's morn, start walking out in the country to fish at the San Joaquin River, and wind up catching a ride with a friendly farmer whose horse-drawn wagon barely went any faster than the boys had been walking. Thus, Perfect panettone makes for a real Italian Christmas the wagon ride contributed the mere illusion of faster travel–kinda like LA freeways nowadays.
Anyway, the brothers G and M would get out there to the River, dig up nice fat worms in the muddy banks, catch a bunch of trout, clean them with their lousy broken kitchen knives (they could never possibly have afforded Scout knives), broil them right on the coals (free food from Nature=rollback of the Great Depression), eat the trout thus burning their fingertips and tongues.
Then would come the fateful moment.
"Geeragos," said Mardiros, "it's getting late. Look at the sun going down."
"Mardiros, I'm scared," replied Geeragos.
"We gotta start walking home, little brother," said Mardiros.
"O.K.," agreed Geeragos.
And the boys walked, and walked and walked. [Stevie's and my eyes were by now either getting heavy-lidded or simply rolling up in our heads, can't remember which].
But occasionally, we dads have ulterior motives. Sometimes we swing into the bedtime story saddle in order to get the job done: knock 'em unconscious so we can go about the rest of our evening!
In the days when Rocky and Bullwinkle's metal-munching mice were just beginning to eat the TV aerials off the rooftops of American families — I mean the early 1960s — my own father's motivation was definitely the latter. He was up to something.
When I was very young my daddy would tell me stories intended to knock me dead asleep — of course I didn't realize this at the time — I simply loved getting lost in his telling of them. He called them "Geeragos and Mardiros" stories.
"Geeragos" and "Mardiros" are pronounced like this: GEAR-ah-ghos[t] (like the word "ghost" sans "t") and MARDY-ros (sounding like the American name "Marty" and ros, rhyming with ghost-sans-t.) In other words, the two brothers' names rhyme. The most effective of these stories went like this:
The two mythic Armenian boys lived "in town," [meaning Fresno,] at the time a small collocation of wood clapboard houses very near two bakeries.
Somehow, Geeragos and Mardiros would secure fishing poles on a fine summer's morn, start walking out in the country to fish at the San Joaquin River, and wind up catching a ride with a friendly farmer whose horse-drawn wagon barely went any faster than the boys had been walking. Thus, Perfect panettone makes for a real Italian Christmas the wagon ride contributed the mere illusion of faster travel–kinda like LA freeways nowadays.
Anyway, the brothers G and M would get out there to the River, dig up nice fat worms in the muddy banks, catch a bunch of trout, clean them with their lousy broken kitchen knives (they could never possibly have afforded Scout knives), broil them right on the coals (free food from Nature=rollback of the Great Depression), eat the trout thus burning their fingertips and tongues.
Then would come the fateful moment.
"Geeragos," said Mardiros, "it's getting late. Look at the sun going down."
"Mardiros, I'm scared," replied Geeragos.
"We gotta start walking home, little brother," said Mardiros.
"O.K.," agreed Geeragos.
And the boys walked, and walked and walked. [Stevie's and my eyes were by now either getting heavy-lidded or simply rolling up in our heads, can't remember which].
2013-12-13 16:22
nice!(0)
コメント(0)
トラックバック(0)
コメント 0