Words to Live By

In journalism and in life I value my own expression, “You don’t know until you know.”  Said so much better was “If your mother says she loves you ….check it out!” This was the motto at the Chicago City News Bureau, created in 1890 by fifteen Chicago newspapers, with the purpose of covering City news co-operatively. It lasted until 1998. Unfortunately, the name of the editor who created the saying has been lost.

I now live in a community and stories fly. “ I hear John had a heart attack.” No, it was a stroke. “He was head of the philosophy department.” No, he taught English and history. I take all stories about people here with a grain of salt.

Thinking about these expressions started me also remembering other words – things my mother always said, folk expressions, other people’s words and, horrors, even so called clichés that I often use.  Why have some of these survived and why do we use them. Obviously because they are so apt and they are shortcuts to our thoughts.

This was one of my mother’s mantras.  Once, when talking about my daughter, she said, “ Don’t tell me how smart she is, or how pretty. May she be lucky.”  She believed luck trumps beauty and brains and I tend to agree.

You never know where you will find wisdom. The man who many years ago, before I owned a washing machine, delivered clean laundry to our home, once said to me,” To lie in a sick bed is a sure death.” He meant, of course, if you need to make a change in your life, big or small, get on with it. I never forgot his advice and often used it, but probably not enough. I consider it one of the most useful expressions I ever heard.

Two sayings I enjoy are: “ Too soon old, too late schmart.” How true. This one I learned on a trip to Lancaster, home of the  Pennsylvania Dutch community. One whose origin I do not know is “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.” I just enjoy the image of the annoyed pig.

I learned the latest saying in my small repertoire from my son Marc. He told me, “ Get ready, shoot, aim.” Whoops, what does that mean? It means don’t wait for perfection until you get going. So here goes, my blog, “Roaming Through Life”.