I won. To quote Sally Fields, “they like me, they really like me.”
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| The Pulitzer Price- I found this in a box of Crackerjacks |
I didn’t expect to receive this phone call but I was notified by the Pulitzer committee early in the morning. They said that they have been reading my blog and thought it worthy of a grand prize.
According to Anders Gyllenhaal, chair of the committee from the Pulitzer Prize Committee…
“The Pulitzer Committee read your blog about the number 32. We didn’t realize how funny a single number could be until we carefully reviewed the facts as outlined in your well-written blog. We had always thought that 89 was a humorous number and the number 26 always made us laugh under our breath but as you have demonstrated, the number 32 is truly funny. It took your writing to point this out to us and it inspired us to read all of your post. We are pleased to inform you that you are the 2011 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Blogging.”
I will be traveling to Stockholm to accept the award.
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| The Pulitzer Committee have recently learned how to fold their hands together and some can now stand up tall |
Of course, I did not really win.
I guess that didn’t take you 32 seconds to figure out. I made this up since it is April 1st or April Fools Days.
Did you know that April Fools dates back to The Cantebury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1392. Apparently the April Fool was someone who didn’t know that the calendar had been change and that New Years was moved from April to January. Medieval folks played practical jokes on one another if they were ill informed. I can only image what a 14th century practical joke was like? I bet it involved sheep in costumes, wooden buckets of sour milk and silly hats with feathers.
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| Sheep in costume |
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| Sour milk in wooden buckets |
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| Medieval woman in strange hat (a relative of Lady Gaga?) |
Elephants in the Backyard
When my daughters were very young, I used to wake them up on April 1st and tell them that we had an elephant or a giraffe in our backyard.
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| Where the deer and elephant play |
They would rush to the window thrilled with excitement. Confident that their Daddy wouldn’t lie, they couldn’t wait to see the wildlife. Since several deer populated our backyard, it wasn’t a leap of faith to believe the elephants would be there too.
When they got to the big glass pane in the kitchen, they couldn’t believe their eyes. Where is the elephant Dad…I don’t see it?
As they grew up,this no longer worked.
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| Giraffes in Raleigh, North Carolina |
After the elephant in the backyard routine, it was hard to pull an April Fool’s Day joke on the girls. But even today, I will try and trick them. As they are both in their twenties, it is not as easy as it used to be.
Trust
My elephants in the backyard practical joke made me think about trust.
My girls believed what I told them when they were little about the wandering animals in the backyard because they trusted me. Unconditionally, without question- they knew I had their best interest at heart.
To this day, nothing has change.
They still trust me and know that I am always looking after them even though their homes are in Honolulu and Hollywood. When they come to me for advice, they know I am trying to look out for their best interest. Whether it involves information about money, men or malbec, they know that I am only trying to be helpful. Trust is something you earn over time and it is not something that can be purchased with money. Being able to trust another person completely is a gift and a blessing.
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| Henry Fielding |
There is a quote by Henry Fielding, the 18th century English Novelist who wrote Tom Jones.
“It is a good maxim
to trust a person
entirely or not at all.”
I have always liked this quote and it has been the advice I have given to my daughters about relationships. This covers dating, friends, colleagues but is especially meant for close friendships.
Either you trust someone completely or not at all. To me it is a black and white issue and requires no blurry grey middle. Either the person is trustworthy or they aren’t. You don’t have to waste a lot of time with untrustworthy people…they aren’t like well-aged wine where they improve.
I’m not suggesting they should find the perfect person without any faults. But trust is something that doesn’t have parts you can chip off and reattach later. By your twenties, you are already a fully formed human being and if you can’t be completely trusted, why bother being disappointed?
My view, like Mr. Fielding, is an all or nothing approach on the topic of trust. No nuance. No excuses. No…well I didn’t mean it.
In business, I have tried to apply the same principle with people who I have employed in my own company or who work on my team in my current corporate role. Trust is a linchpin that requires full faith and belief. I can’t trust someone to do the right thing some of the time but not at other times.
You can’t partition trust as if it were a hard drive.
To me trust is all or nothing at all.
On this April Fools, I thought that I would call the girls up and tell them to come rushing home because there are some single, attractive young men riding elephants and giraffes in the backyard.
I think they trust me enough to know that I am only looking after their best interests.
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| Fanny and Sarah |
Very nice blog post, Jeff! Although I think I have too much trust – I actually believed your Pulitzer Prize prank and was starting to get very excited for you!… What can I say – easily bamboozled. 😉
i don’t know about sarah…but if you had told me this year that brad pitt was in the backyard riding an elephant–you would have seen me within the hour. of course i don’t remember every april fools on koupela drive (i guess i had about 21 of them), but i DO have a very vivid memory of being about seven years old and rushing down the stairs to the big window in the kitchen. i was slightly disappointed because one, there was only a squirell eating the bird seed and two, because it was early (i actually remember this clearly enough to know that the sky was a little gray and had just turned to morning). although i have a feeling that cheesy eggs and/or pancakes came after this specific april fools trick, so i forgive you.