Happy Holidays to all of the people in our "Fandy" club, and everyone who reads this message!
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Since it is so close to Xmas, I would like to take this opportunity to share this Xmas essay by Andrew A. Rooney with you. Hope you all enjoy it!
"Favorite Presents"
What are the best Xmas presents you ever got?
I was trying to recall my favorites.
My parents gave me a Buddy-L truck that was trong enough for me to sit on when I was five or six and I can still remember everything about it. That was
certainly one of my best presents ever.
A year or two later, they gave me a little steam engine that actually worked. It ran from a boiler that was heated with a can of Sterno. The steam made the
wheels go round, but I'm a little vague about what te wheels did once you got them going. It was a wonderful little toy, but in retrospect I think my uncle, who
was there that Xmas, had more fun with it than I did. It certainly didn't compare with my Buddy-L.
Another uncle used to give me some dumb thing he found in his attic. I never liked whatever it was, but he usually gave me a five dollar bill, and a twenty dollar
gold piece too. At the age of ten or so, I preferred the cold cash to the gold piece because, of course, my mother never let me spend that. I don't know what
happened to all those gold pieces. I suspect my mother might have cashed them in one of those years they were having a tough time. Mom wasn't very
sentimental about things like Indian head pennies or gold pieces that I'd saved.
Considering that I got dozens of presents every Xmas, it's not very nice of me to have forgotten all but a few. I remember the year I got an Iver Johnson bicycle
and the year I got a pair of high leather boots with a jackknife in a little pocket on the side of the right one.
Once you get over being a kid, there's no telling what Xmas presents are going to strike you as exceptional. I have a cashmere scarf a friend gave me about
twelve years ago. It looked just like any other scary when I got it, but I've never lost it and I've worn it a lot on very cold days. Scarves don't normally turn me
on when I get one as a present, but this one has been special.
My four kids, grown now, have been great gift-givers. There's no reason I should be surprised, but I always am, at how intimately they know me. It's fun to get
a present you weren't expecting that indicates that the person who gave it to you knows you thoroughly well. (Most of us are modest enough to be grateful to be
liked by anyone who knows us well.)
Brian gave me a Japanese dovetail saw last year that must have been hard to find. I still use the pasta maker Emily got for me five years ago, and I love the
wood identification book that Ellen found. It has little samples of more than a hundred different kinds of wood, describing their properties. Martha and Leo gave
me a whole ~case~ of tennis balls. I love anything in wholesale amounts, but it had never occurred to me to buy a case of tennis balls.
One of my great all-time presents was given to me by Arthur Godfrey when I was working for him in about 1954. He gave me a woodworking tool called a
Shopsmith. It must have cost about $250.00 at the time, and I couldn't have been happier if I was six again, getting that Buddy-L. I still have it, and use it every
single weekend of my life and often on a weeknight.
I realize how personal all this is. I even understand that a reader wouldn't care about my scarf or my Buddy-L. When you write something like this, you hope it
will be understood that the specific examples represent something more universal. By which I mean, I'm sure you've all had your own equivalent of my
Buddy-Ls, tennis balls, and five dollar bills.
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That essay was written back in the time when a stamp only cost twenty cents, by the way...hope it brought you some holiday cheer, and maybe got you to
thinking over holidays past, and some of YOUR favorite presents, both ones you've gotten, and ones you've given!
Holiday time gives us pause to ponder the relationships in our lives. Who are these people, and why are they in our lives? Have we let them know how
important they are to us? Would our friends and family sense an enduring loss if somehow, we were no longer in their lives? Though loved ones may have left
our lives, do we continue to share the same values that made them "loved ones" in the first place?
Parents, children, brothers, sisters, friends: The Universe, to which we are all family, has given us so much to share. All to often at Xmastime, I suppose we show
it through the contents of wonderfully wrapped boxes and presents. If you happen to have youngsters in your life, you know there is much merit in such
expression. But as we grow, as we take inventory of what is really important, I propose tat it is the love behind such gifts which endures long after the contents
have been revealed. The real gift we give is the love we share.
Know this...if you are reading this letter, you are loved. You are part of a "bigger family," ~OUR~ family, like it or not. Welcome to the journey!
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All roads lead to Rome/Roam
All roads lead to ecurB
All roads lead to Hix
All roads lead to Andy
All roads lead to Other Roads
All roads are a Mobius
Ut! Trvth Is Universal!
Solidarity Through Andy!
Solidarity Through Diversity!
Love,
Sister Holly, The Overpaid And Underqualified
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If you would like to reccomend a book, video, or website, or if you have an idea for a thought of the week, please email us with the suggestion...we'd be happy
to print it!
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RECCOMENDED VIDEOS:
*Andy Footage Can Be Had Here: http://andy-land.homepage.com/video.html
This is Kate Sith's video page, at her site, "Andy Land," which I also reccomend.
She's currently backordered, so it will take a little while for your videos to arrive.
*Some things can also be found at:
www.videoflicks.com
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*Books by and about Andy Kaufman can be had here, at Zilch Publishing:
www.andykaufmaninprint.com
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