YOU NEVER FORGET SOME THINGS THAT ARE SAID

There are words, phrases and even anecdotes that remain in your brain for the rest of your life, or like an unsolicited smile from a baby.

Here are a few of mine:

“Answer the phone dear, it could be somebody” Someone I once loved said to me.

“Maestra, maestra, Soriano me tocó el pipi” A fifth grade classmate of mine complaining to the teacher that an older, more promiscuous boy had touched his genitals.

“We interrupt this broadcast to inform you that President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas” I was in my high school drafting class and we had music playing while we drew floor plans.

“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” That summer I went home to California during my college summer vacation.

“I see you’re wearing the shirt I gave you for your birthday…what’s the matter, you didn’t like the other one? My mom’s askew logic.

“You want to see your baby girl?” The hospital nurse when my first daughter was born

“I gave him all 25 Valentine’s cards daddy, not to the class but to Frank…you see, I love him” My youngest daughter in kindergarten informing me of the fate of the box of cards I bought her to give her classmates.

“Los Reyes Magos no exixten” (The three Wise men don’t exist) Mayito, my next door neighbor ending my childhood innocence.

 
“Does your mom know you’re playing with the phone?” Back in the sixties what a telephone operator told me as I was trying to make a long distance call.

“Don’t die, don’t die” This good Samaritan was telling me after she pulled me from the wreck of the car and held my bleeding head on her lap as she sat on the ground sobbing. I was 21 and when I opened my eyes and saw this very ugly old woman I thought for sure I had gone to hell.

“Can your wife get up from the wheelchair and walk through the security scanner?” What the TSA person asked me when I traveled with my 90 yr old mother to Seattle for my daughter’s wedding.

“Would you like to take advantage of our Senior Citizen discount?” What the girl at the movie ticket counter asked me when I wasn’t even fifty years old.

On the other hand, I was often mistaken for someone much younger: “So, tell me, are you a working boy?” What my friend Lou asked me the first night I met him ten years ago, he was thinking I was an escort or hustler.

 

A few years later trying to pick up somebody at a bar I said: “So tell me, where have you been all my life?” and the person replied: “Well, half of it I wasn’t even born”

“The Florida citrus industry represent $500 million to the state’s economy, I appreciate the sacrifice your mother and you are making” in a letter from Jeb Bush, then Governor, to which I replied: “Dear Governor, our Constitutional rights are worth more than $500 million dollars” When they wanted to chop down all of our citrus trees (26, mature, fruit producing trees)

Standing in front of Itaipú dam with both my infant daughters in Brazil I said: "Take a look at this hydroelectric dam girls, it is the largest in the world" And my youngest then said:"But daddy, it isn't even in the United States"

"I can't have seconds, I'm so full, as a matter of fact, I can't remember ever eating this well" A guest at the dinner table said and my 7 yr old daughter answered: "neither can we".