I THOUGHT THIS might entertain y'all... a business letter from my 1929 shorthand manual I decyphered when I could not sleep...I don't consider myself right-on politically correct but this really made me laugh. By the way you can click here and see the original squiggles under "89: Reading and Dictation Practice" and see how clever I am~ har-har.
Dear Sir:
I have an opening immediately for a man with a
thorough knowledge of French and Spanish to go abroad
with a committee representing the officials of this company. If
present plans are completed the party will leave next
week on the Ile de France and remain overseas
between six and eight months. The officials already
have expressed their opinion that it will be necessary to employ a
college man not over thirty-five of good family.
It will be of special value if he has some knowledge
of finance.
You will readily agree that getting such a
man is no easy task. I feel that since
you know so many college men, as well as your
own fellow classmates you may be able to send one
of them for this job that really has a future in it.
May I ask you to phone my office soon. Yours truly,
Man? Man? Man? Good family? I make no further comment...
Re: yesterday's NA rant, as I said and I must reiterate because I'm not NA-bashing just making an observation on certain (always uncommented on) features that have really niggled: NA does work for those who "work it" (as they say). It has saved countless lives in the most literal sense and in the widest possible sense because nobody was born to be a crackhead or junkie. In the depths of the addiction I lost sight totally of this. I saw my body as nothing but a receptacle for drugs and more drugs (heroin, alcohol, crack in descending order) and began to cuss my disappearing veins. Why else did I have veins, except to spear hypodermics full of gear into them?
Thanks for yesterday's Answers. I wanted to reply to three points:~
Why couldn't I just ask the man who "drug of choice drug of choice drug of choiced"? Well you're allowed no cross-talk which means people talk in turn and if you want to ask a question like that you'd normally do it afterwards in private. And the reason I didn't do that was this bloke was famously curmudgeonly and might well have snapped "mind your own business: if I wanted you to know I'd have shared it"!
Why 12 steps?
Best way I can put it is, they're like the 12 base camp stations on the way up Everest... it's by far too big a thing to take on in one.
I don't know how they came about, but someone somewhere had ever so cleverly picked up every excuse-making, backsliding self-deceptive tendency of the addict (though I believe these 12 steps originated with Alcoholics Anonymous) and constructed a life-encompassing programme of recovery with no excuses, no unfinished business. Hence Step 9 involves making amends to those we've damaged, wherever possible, except when to do so might cause harm (I've puzzled over what type of "amend" might cause harm and what type but drew a blank). Through the Steps you can achieve closure with the past, gain a renewed almost "reborn"-type perspective on life and far from going on just not taking drugs ~ RECOVERY is gradually achieved ~ a state of newness, unity and health I have seen in the spirit of others who have done the programme... and finally learned to live. That, to my understanding, is what Recovery's about.
If the phrases work for some people isn't that OK?
Yes it's fine but they can put off the newcomer and cause confusion and irritation and people first come into NA in extremely vulnerable states. Anything that doesn't help should if possible be avoided.
MUSIC ~ VINCENT
THIS is my favourite Don McLean song. I've heard it sung by Julio Iglesias who may claim to have bedded 2000 (or is it 3000? women) yet so obviously hasn't a clue about the passion this song speaks of...
RIGHT I've got to go I've gone all paranoid about whether I left the cooker on with boil int bag fish... YUUURKS!!
*** "WHERE DID THE 12 STEPS COME FROM?" QUERY ANSWERED ...
Hope you turned your cooker off.
ReplyDeleteI used to wonder who wrote those shorthand (never got far) and typing letters we had to practice over and over, now seeing this one makes me smile*!*
You are indeed clever! I did shorthand years ago and can still take it but have a bugger of a job reading it back, work that one out! Thanks for the NA clarifications. don't you hate that feeling that you've left the cooker on or the door unlocked or the iron on . . .
ReplyDeleteBIMBIMBIE: I wish I had the means to post up the illustrations and patronizing commentary from my 1950 Gregg Shorthand Manual: Simplified ~ being aimed at schoolchildren it was even more patronizing, despite the (slightly) more "enlightened" time...
ReplyDeleteBAINO: o i can work that one out. because I can't work out my own blinkin' scribbles. the "iealized" versions in the book are somewhat easier as the writer got the hang of making tiny circles constantly tiny, and e.g. not tilting the angle of a horizontal line, no matter what came before it, which would change the meaning... If I hadn't have got so far I tell you I'd be convinced the task of learning it was impossible it just feels hopeless in the beginning puzzling over these alien scrawls "o man what IS this..?"
of course i had NOT left the cooker on
hey I know someone who spent an entire weekend in Paris convinced she'd left the oven on and would return to a charred cinder of a home... and of course she hadn't. but an entire awaybreak weekend was ruined %-}...
I was just barely a teen when that song came out - my older brother played it a lot - seems to me he played it on guitar and I would sing it...No one seems to write ballads like that any more.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you think of the Britney Spears ballad from yesterday then...??!?
ReplyDelete;->...
I just listened to the Britney thing. I'm really not into Britney. I'm sure I'd like it well enough if anyone else did it. In a lower key. And I found her fingernails distracting because they were ugly. ok i'm petty. But that wasn't the same kind of ballad at all that McLean did is it?
ReplyDeleteThis learning type writing picture reminds me of my time at school, lol ! Only the typwriters were much older and so hard to type on.
ReplyDeleteBTW Gattina is Italian and means "kitten" I live in Belgium now for 50 years because my father came here in 59 to work for the Commun Market. I still kept my German passport. I have always lived in the french part of Belgium and don't know flemish very well.
JEANNIE: of course it's not in the same league as DonMcL... I was being a bit "ironic" I suppose!!
ReplyDeleteI do like the Britney vid but it is a bit childish and mawkish although the video adds a more mature "theme" not actually there in the song's words
most of Britney's stuff I find ~ yeah a bit catchy but such trash and I know I'll sound such a codger but she really doesn't measure up to Madonna who, if you look at her song output has at least really stretched herself and made a truly remarkable career from a truly remarkably miniscule amount of talent!!
GATTINA: being a native German speaker don't you find Dutch-Flemish really easy to understand?... I wanted to move to Amsterdam quite seriously about 18 yrs ago and took up learning Dutch I RACED through the course on the back of all the German I'd done in 5 yrs at school it was so easy. Once you realized the guttural kkkhhhh sound is just a G and the N on -en endings isn't pronounced you can leap ahead... and all those expressions verzekkering/Versicherung etc etc surely I would have thought Dutch would come to you more easily than English which is full of French, Latin and Greek...?~no??
Don McLean's Vincent was my favorite song back in the early 70's. And I have a passion for Van Gogh's paintings, which may have been sparked by McLean. Good points you bring up about the 12 step program. Thank you for posting about that, I've had an ongoing curiosity about how it all works. I know many who have been in recovery for years, and still their lives revolve around their 12 step friends. It can be miraculous for those who stick with it, but you are right, it can be very offputting.
ReplyDeleteWell I had to tell the truth as I saw it otherwise I would sound typically closedminded like the "majority" "out there" or just another mindless drone like the "brainwashed" in "the rooms"... really it isn't like either perspective...
ReplyDeleteI love Van Gough too I once found myself in a room stuffed with originals in the Orsay Museum in Paris... it was just after Sunflowers and Irises had fetched those record sums... and all I could think of was how many billions all this paint and canvas was worth..!!
Of course I understand but spoken flemish is so ugly ! that's why I never tried to learn it. Dutch sounds much better ! My son lives in Amsterdam with a dutch girl but we always speak english together. If I make an effort I could speak too, but honnestly I don't like this language !
ReplyDeletehmmm no don mclean song here at the mo., i will have to come back to check
ReplyDeletei still know all the words to all of American Pie (the album)
i love the photo - my mum could well have been one of those secretaries