It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It - Softcover

Fulghum, Robert

 
9780804105828: It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0804105820 ISBN 13: 9780804105828
Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 1991

Inhaltsangabe

From the author to the reader: 

Show-and-Tell was the very best part of school for me, both as a student and as a teacher.

As a kid, I put more into getting ready for my turn to present than I put into the rest of my homework. Show-and-Tell was real in a way that much of what I learned in school was not. It was education that came out of my life experience.

As a teacher, I was always surprised by what I learned from these amateur hours. A kid I was sure I knew well would reach down into a paper bag he carried and fish out some odd-shaped treasure and attach meaning to it beyond my most extravagant expectation. 

Again and again I learned that what I thought was only true for me . . . only valued by me . . . only cared about by me . . . was common property. The principles guiding this book are not far from the spirit of Show-and-Tell. It is stuff from home—that place in my mind and heart where I most truly live.

P.S. This volume picks up where I left off in All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, when I promised to tell about the time it was on fire when I lay down on it.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robert Fulghum is a writer, philosopher, and public speaker, but he has also worked as a cowboy, a folksinger, an IBM salesman, a professional artist, a parish minister, a bartender, a teacher of drawing and painting, and a father. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten has inspired numerous theater pieces that have captivated audiences across the country. Fulghum is also the author of many New York Times bestsellers, including It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It, Uh-Oh, and Maybe (Maybe Not), as well as two plays: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten and Uh-Oh, Here Comes Christmas. He has also written two novels: Third Wish and If You Love Me Still, Will You Love Me Moving?

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phenomenal best-seller, EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN, Robert Fulghum reminded readers everywhere of some plain and still-true truths. Now, picking up where he left off, Fulghum turns our eyes to show-and-tell, weddings, his own ten commandments, and more insightful and unique observations on what our world is and was....

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phenomenal best-seller, EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN, Robert Fulghum reminded readers everywhere of some plain and still-true truths. Now, picking up where he left off, Fulghum turns our eyes to show-and-tell, weddings, his own ten commandments, and more insightful and unique observations on what our world is and was....

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

A TABLOID NEWSPAPER CARRIED THE STORY, stating simply that a small-town emergency squad was summoned to a house where smoke was pouring from an upstairs window. The crew broke in and found a man in a smoldering bed. After the man was rescued and the mattress doused, the obvious question was asked: “How did this happen?”
 
“I don’t know. It was on fire when I lay down on it.”
 
The story stuck like a burr to my mental socks. And reminded me of a phrase copied into my journal from the dedication of some book: “Quid rides? Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur.” Latin. From the writings of Horace. Translated: “Why do you laugh? Change the name, and the story is told of you.”
 
It was on fire when I lay down on it.
 
A lot of us could settle for that on our tombstones. A life-story in a sentence. Out of the frying pan and into the hot water. I was looking for trouble and got into it as soon as I found it. The devil made me do it the first time, and after that I did it on my own.
 
Or to point at this truth at a less intense level, I report a conversation with a colleague who was complaining that he had the same damn stuff in his lunch sack day after day.
 
“So who makes your lunch?” I asked.
 
“I do,” says he.
 
We’ve got some fine old company in this deal.
 
Saint Paul bemoaned the fact that “I cannot understand my own behavior. I fail to carry out the things I want to do, and I find myself doing the very things I hate.”
 
And the Greek dramatist Euripides puts these words in Medea’s mouth just before she murders her own children: “I know what evil I am about to do. My irrational self is stronger than my resolution.”
 
Psychiatrists make a lot of money off this dilemma, and theologians make a lot of noise. But not only is it unresolved, it is unresolvable. One lives with the dilemma, and in the living takes comfort in the company of those who habitually lie down on burning beds of one kind or another. It would be better if we could simply lay claim to the beds we choose as our own and get on with it.
 
And one more thing.
 
About the man in the burning bed in the story. As with most of what we see other people do, we don’t know why they do it, either. If our own actions are mysteries, how much so others’? Why did he lie down on the burning bed? Was he drunk? Ill? Suicidal? Blind? Cold? Dumb? Did he just have a weird sense of humor? Or what? I don’t know. It’s hard to judge without a lot more information. Oh sure, we go ahead and judge anyhow. But maybe if judgment were suspended a bit more often, we would like us more.
 
God, it is written, warned his first children, Adam and Eve. He made it clear. Don’t eat that piece of fruit—it will lead to trouble. You know the rest of the story.…
 
And part of that story is here in this book.
 
 
 
I HAVE MARRIED MORE THAN A THOUSAND TIMES. Officiated as the minister at a whole lot of weddings and usually managed to get so involved in each occasion that it felt like I was the one getting married. Still, I always look forward to marrying again, because most weddings are such comedies.
 
Not that they are intended as such. But since weddings are high state occasions involving amateurs under pressure, everything NEVER goes right. Weddings seem to be magnets for mishap and for whatever craziness lurks in family closets. In more ways than one, weddings bring out the ding-dong in everybody involved.
 
I will tell you the quintessential wedding tale. One of disaster. Surprisingly, it has a happy ending, though you may be in doubt, as I was, as the story unfolds.
 
The central figure in this drama was the mother of the bride (MOTB). Not the bride and groom or minister. Mother. Usually a polite, reasonable, intelligent, and sane human being, Mother was mentally unhinged by the announcement of her daughter’s betrothal. I don’t mean she was unhappy, as is often the case. To the contrary. She was overcome with joy. And just about succeeded in overcoming everybody else with her joy before the dust settled.
 
Nobody knew it, but this lady had been waiting with a script for a production that would have met with Cecil B. DeMille’s approval. A royal wedding fit for a princess bride. And since it was her money, it was hard to say no. The father of the bride began to pray for an elopement. His prayers were not to be answered.
 
She had seven months to work, and no detail was left to chance or human error. Everything that could be engraved was engraved. There were teas and showers and dinners. The bride and groom I met with only three times. The MOTB called me weekly, and was in my office as often as the cleaning lady. (The caterer called me to ask if this was really a wedding, or an invasion he was involved in. “Invasion,” I told him.)
 
An eighteen-piece brass and wind ensemble was engaged. (The church organ simply would not do—too “churchy.”) The bride’s desires for home furnishings were registered in stores as far east as New York and as far south as Atlanta. Not only were the bridesmaids’ outfits made to order, but the tuxedos for the groom and his men were bought—not rented, mind you. Bought. If all that wasn’t enough, the engagement ring was returned to the jeweler for a larger stone, quietly subsidized by the MOTB. When I say the lady came unhinged, I mean UNHINGED.
 
Looking back, it seems now that the rehearsal and dinner on the evening before the great event were not unlike what took place in Napoleon’s camp the night before Waterloo. Nothing had been left to chance. Nothing could prevent a victory on the coming day. Nobody would EVER forget this wedding. (Just as nobody ever forgot Waterloo. For the same reason, as it turned out.)
 
The juggernaut of fate rolled down the road, and the final hour came. Guests in formal attire packed the church. Enough candles were lit to bring daylight back to the evening. In the choir loft the orchestra gushed great music. And the mighty MOTB coasted down the aisle with the grandeur of an opera diva at a premier performance. Never did the mother of the bride take her seat with more satisfaction. She had done it. She glowed, beamed, smiled, and sighed.
 
The music softened, and nine—count them, nine—chiffon-draped bridesmaids lockstepped down the long aisle while the befrocked groom and his men marched stolidly into place.
 
Finally, oh so finally, the wedding march thundered from the orchestra. Here comes the bride. Preceded by four enthusiastic mini-princesses chunking flower petals, and two dwarfish ringbearers—one for each ring. The congregation rose and turned in anticipation.
 
Ah, the bride. She had been dressed for hours if not days. No adrenaline was left in her body. Left alone with her father in the reception hall of the church while the march of the maidens went on and on, she had walked along the tables laden with gourmet goodies and absentmindedly sampled first the little pink and yellow and green mints. Then she picked through the silver bowls of mixed nuts and ate the pecans. Followed by a cheeseball or two, some black olives, a handful of glazed almonds, a little sausage with a frilly toothpick stuck in it, a couple of shrimps blanketed in bacon, and a cracker piled with liver pâté. To wash this down—a glass of pink champagne. Her father gave it to her. To calm her nerves.
 
What you noticed as the bride stood in the doorway was...

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Verlag
Random House Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
1991
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0804105820
ISBN 13 
9780804105828
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
224
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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Softcover