From Thomas to Janet (politeness rant)

Janet sent some images of received mail as well as her sent mail. This one is from ThomasB. I can't tell if it is paint or ink or collage or a combination. The style of writing is called Weaver Writing. It was invented by Gwen Weaver. She has passed away, but I had the pleasure of hosting her when she taught a workshop in Des Moines and we also met up at conferences. A delightful and talented indeed spirit.

I had never done a search for WeaverWriting on IG - so I just did - and - one of the first images that popped up was done with a folded pen and I spotted Leslie's penmanship. Leslie, Janet and Chuck are the top three contributors of additional images. Thank you so much. 

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Here is the followup to yesterday's rant about how politeness is the only thing I can think of that is preferable 100% of the time. And then I said it wasn't. The exception comes in the form of a joke.

I tried to find this joke online because jokes are better when they are well written, but I could not find it - so you'll just have to put up with my version. In my version, I made the second person into an itinerant scribe - just for fun - and because there actually were itinerant scribes who would travel and write out calling cards by hand. Somewhere I have one - I will try to find it and post a photo.

Here is the joke:

A farmer was stuck in the middle of the road with a stubborn donkey who wouldn't move. He was yelling and cursing and tugging and pushing. The donkey wouldn't budge and the farmer was getting angrier and angrier.

An itinerant scribe came along and said, "Whoa. Simmer down. That's not how you get a stubborn donkey to move. You gotta treat 'em nice and gentle."

"OK," said the farmer, "Show me."

With that, the scribe picked up a big board and hit the donkey right between the eyes.

"WHAT THE H__L!" screamed the farmer, "I thought you said you were going to be nice and gentle?"

"Well," said the scribe, "First you gotta get their attention."

And that illustrates my theory -- that every once in a while, you might need to put your politeness on the shelf while you get someone's attention. I'm having some reservations about this theory - but, I'll leave this in because yesterday I said there would be more to the story.

Note to self: don't do that. Your theories are way too fluid.