See If You Can Pick Out The Controversial Thought

"Yes, we're obliged to give most of our daily attention to trivial concerns, but it is our attention that keeps them trivial."


"The trick to accomplishing anything is to avoid the obstacles that are not in your way."


"What you notice about people who have lots of friends is that they don't require a membership."


"I have fancied myself a rebel, but at every critical moment of my life, I have been exactly the child my parents raised."


"How magical it is when the person who knows the words meets the person who knows the tune."


"No matter what you do in life, a part of you still sits at a curbside, still hearing the drumbeat of a distant parade, still waiting for it to turn the corner."


"All is illusion, although as long as there's an illusion that the kids need to be fed, all might as well be reality."


"History is man's best guess as to what the past would look like if everything had happened in chronological order."


"Meanwhile, Americans have finally realized that you don't need to print money to save Wall Street when you can reduce the pensions of police, firefighters and teachers."


"As proof that I'm serious about my diet, I'm cutting out banquets in my honor."


"Thinking that a change of administration is the answer is like thinking that the road would be safer if there were a new troll under the bridge."


"Since the beginning of time the clever have preyed on the ignorant, yet ignorance still abounds. That's how clever they are."


"Every politician who ever walked a mile in my shoes made off with my shoes."


"There is scarcely one of the Ten Commandments that if acted upon in concert would not be a plot to overthrow the government."


~~ Robert Brault

You Fooled Me, Uncle Wiggily

Not long ago I attended a wedding at the little church in the center of our town.  A young lady I’m closely acquainted with married a fine young man.  I had the privilege, in fact, of giving her away.

As we stood together in the aisle, I thought back to earlier days, when I had sat in the big armchair in our living room, that same young lady on my lap, and had read to her from her favorite book, The Adventures of Uncle Wiggily.

At least I think of it as her favorite. She was certainly into Dr. Seuss, and she would listen to Mary Stolz’s Belling of the Tiger as often as I’d consent to read it.  But there was something about the Uncle Wiggily stories that fascinated her especially.  Maybe it was the relish I took in reading them, for they were the same stories in the same big red book that I had grown up with years before.

Do you remember the Uncle Wiggily stories? They were about a kindly rabbit gentleman and his little animal friends, and how the most harmless, everyday events in their lives would lead to the most curious adventures.

As intriguing as were the stories themselves, the little girl on my knee looked forward most, I think, to the postscript the author would tag to each one.  He would say something like, “And unless the salt shaker and the sugar bowl run off together to Timbuktu, I will tell you next time about Uncle Wiggily and the Littletails."

What a delighted giggle those words would bring. I think, in their outrageous silliness, they reassured her. There would always be, after all, another Uncle Wiggily story, always a next time, for everyone knows that salt shakers and sugar bowls do not run off to Timbuktu.

What pleasure I took in reciting the words. The author’s preposterous caveat I’d always deliver with the raised eyebrow it deserved. For a while we played out a little ritual. I would pause in mid-sentence, after the opening absurdity, and the two of us would say together (she in the biggest, loudest voice she could muster), “NOT VERY LIKELY, IF YOU ASK ME!”

And the author’s promise of another story I would always recite with conviction. From the tone of her dad’s voice, the little girl could never have doubted there would be one.  Heck, I  never doubted, either. She seemed so little. Surely there would be many Uncle Wiggily stories to come.

There came a day when she was too big for my lap, but I had only to glance at the rapt young listener, seated on the carpet by the armchair, to know that she was still, after all, a little girl.

I cannot tell you how the last Uncle Wiggily story came to be. Standing in the church aisle the other day, a radiant young woman on my arm, I could not remember an evening when, closing the big red book, we knew there would be no more. Always, in the author’s postscript, had I heard the promise. Never, in the absurd condition attached to it, had I guessed the prophecy.

When it happens, you are not aware. A young lady goes off to bed, and you tuck her in as you always do, and you go off, confident that she is still your little girl. How silly it would be, how preposterous and absurd, to think that anything could ever happen to change that.

And while you sleep, the salt shaker and the sugar bowl rendezvous, and together, silently, they steal away to Timbuktu.


-- Robert Brault in Northeast (The Hartford Courant Sunday Magazine)

Seven Thoughts Exactly As They Occurred To Me

Believe or not, the thoughts I post to this blog have normally been worked and re-worked many times over, often over a period of days.  Many others have been eliminated altogether.  Following are seven thoughts that occurred to me today, June 14, 2011.  Here they are exactly as they popped into my head.  I have not reworked them, and I have not reviewed them in the light of the morning.  If you like these, this blog is going to become a whole lot easier. 



"Sometimes I wonder -- if I were drop-dead handsome, and every woman I met actually dropped dead, would I ever get tired of it?"



"Whatever a woman does to attract a man, if she asks him, "What really attracted you to me," it had better be something else.



"Just because people avoid you doesn't mean they're avoiding you like the plague, unless they're covering their nose with a handkerchief."



"Nothing is ever perfect, like even if you had drop-dead good looks, your skin might exude a lethal noxious gas, and you would never actually know why people around you were dropping dead."



If one day God said to you, "If you wish, you can trade your intelligence for drop-dead good looks, what would your answer be?  I mean, if  "Yes" weren't allowed.



"Just remember -- if you had the friendliest, most winning personality on earth, you'd always wonder if people liked you only for your personality."



For instant perspective, there's nothing like sifting through the rubble of your tornado-ravaged home and finding your "Things I Gotta Do" list from yesterday.


~~ Robert Brault

Thoughts on Religion, Family and Math

And Pilate said to Christ, "You are charged with unlawful doing under others as you would have them do unto you."


"These are not only the good old days you will one day recall, but they are the prehistoric times future creationists will say never existed."


"I'm not sure that Armageddon is at hand, but I suspect that we're pretty close to the end of a 2000-year gap in the biblical record."


"Sadder than the pretense that an unborn child never lived is the pretense that it never died."


"And so continues my lifelong search for a religion that will accept me as a heretic."


"The insane person believes with certainty what the rest of us merely suspect."


"To be happy though poor is not only possible but fervently wished for us by our relatives."


"Most of us don't need a psychiatric therapist as much as a friend to be silly with."


"Often the thing lacking in a father-son relationship is a little old-fashioned nepotism."


"Every mother knows how to play the single mom and does so exactly to the extent her marriage requires."


"All we ask of mom is to rejoice when we find someone in life who can make us happier than she can."


"Always keep your home presentable, assuming you keep a home for purposes of presentation."


"Most gardens are a triumph of nature over too much watering, as are most grown children."


"Every scientific discovery is an exercise in reverse engineering, invariably cited as proof that there was no original engineer."


"Either evolution or intelligent design can account for the athlete, but neither can account for the sports fan."


"Are your kids unruly or is it normal child behavior?  Don't ask me.  They're your rules."


"The shortest distance between two points assumes you know where you're going."


"To become wealthy, you must not only find the road to riches, but you must not meet an investment advisor along the way."


"I see by the papers that ignorance of math is growing by geometric progression, whatever that is."



~~ Robert Brault

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

I was reading recently the classic Ambrose Bierce short-story,  An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.  In the story, a captured Confederate spy survives his own hanging when the noose, apparently, breaks.  As the tale unfolds, we follow his escape through forest and swamp, until he eventually finds his way back home. But as he runs into his wife's waiting arms, everything flashes white before him, and we learn that our hero was hanged after all, his entire journey home being an hallucination that occurred in the split second between his dropping through the gallows and his neck snapping.

Reading this, I recalled Coleridge's well-known observation that creative fiction requires a "willing suspension of disbelief."  Bierce's story certainly requires that, but it requires something more, it strikes me. I wonder if the same thought strikes you. That is to say, more than a willing suspension of disbelief, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge  requires a "------- --------- in ----------".

(You are welcome to leave your answer in the comments.  The person supplying the best answer will receive my personal congratulations.)

~~ Robert Brault

At Last a Few New Thoughts

"A new-born child is that rarity in life -- an improvement on our best hopes."


Heard at a memorial service: "She was a person who would stop to smell the roses on her way to smell the roses."


"God answers first the prayers we should have prayed."


"Among life's regrets is all the time wasted being early for everything."


"It is granted to a woman to have the children of her destiny by the man of her choice."


"It is difficult to recall the chance happenings of a lifetime and not see in them a body of work."


"If you're the type of person who won't wait in line for anything, it's important to marry a person who will."


"A major challenge in retirement is what to do when a police officer tells you to go about your business."


A friend's lament:  "My dad was a man who, if he chased a butterfly, it would take him to the office."


"If all the moms in the world stopped to smell the roses, who would be out there planting the roses?"


"Ah, the cruelty of life!  Chasing a dream, Cousin Mort ran off to the South Pacific to paint, only to discover that everyone had vinyl siding."


~~ Robert Brault