3 days from today, Sept 24th, will be the 13th year that has passed since one of my hero's passed away: Dr. Seuss. March 4th of '04 would have been his 100th b-day.
Now, it's not like I'm some fanatic or anything, but I just consider him to be an all around good guy, who loved children and children loved him, or at least his stories. In fact, I'm pretty sure that most of us know at least one of his stories, not including the Grinch. And even with his imaginative stories, he even included morals from time to time, like The Lorax and the Star Bellied Sneetches. So while he entertained kids, he also taught them things.
While not being entirely creative with some of his moral themes, he presented them in memorable ways, and quotable lines. One of which sticks with me:
Be who you are, and say as you do Because those that matter don't mind And those that mind don't matter
Dr. Seuss was a great person for the things he did with childrens books. I just thought I'd mention my admiration of him. Who are some of your heros?
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
Bono.
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
Sonny Bono is your hero!?
Care to elaborate?
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
Well, he's got me, Babe.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
(not to detract from Dr. Seuss, of course. Genius, pure genius.)
Posted by Dr. Seuss (Member # 2487) on :
Did you know there are only 50 words in "The Cat in the Hat"?
T, it makes me so happy to know that one such as you considers me a Hero. You made my day.
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
Holy friggin repressed screen name...
2 years and you finally post?! Wow!
Actually, Mr. Seuss, I believe you are talking about Green Eggs and Ham only having 50 words in it. It could be for Cat in the Hat also, but the same thing applies for GEaH.
Posted by Dr. Seuss (Member # 2487) on :
Green eggs in Ham has 220.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
Did he write Go Dog Go?
Posted by Dr. Seuss (Member # 2487) on :
T, I had to wait for the right time, and when you come offering me such high praise, I just couldn't withstand to not come and accept it.
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
But... you're dead.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
This is surreal. I'm going to bed.
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
Don't you watch cheesy movies, T? Death is only the beginning...
Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :
Annie, Go Dog Go was not by Dr. Seuss, nor was Are You My Mother. They just looked like they were. I think they were Seuss imitators.
Which is your favorite? I really like One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, I think. It's got everything. Pathos, Humor, and great rhymes. I just love it.
[ September 21, 2003, 02:58 AM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
If death is only the beginning, then what the heck is life?
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
Ummm... a Prologue? Or maybe Death is the sequel to life..
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
My favorite was The Cat in the Hat followed by The Lorax.
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
I love The Lorax. And The Sneetches. And the one where the guy says he can lick 23 Tigers... (He really didn't lick anything at all, least of all Tigers)
Posted by Dr. Seuss (Member # 2487) on :
Now tell me here you Noble T, what author in his right Head, though he be Dead would not post here? We have the living Uncle Scott, and long dead Tolkein, We have many experienced writers, and many aspiring.
Death is the Beginning, Life is the End. The Beginning of all to come, The End of all that has passed.
Posted by Dr. Seuss (Member # 2487) on :
The Lorax is classic.
Ryuko, I'm glad you like my "I Can Lick 30 Tigers To-day", not many have read it.
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
Could you make a story out of that. I'm a bit confused. Oh, and can you put a few who's into the story?
Posted by H.G. Wells (Member # 5713) on :
quote: But... you're dead.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :
T...Have you seen "The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T" (1953)?
quote:Bart has only one enemy in the world, his piano teacher Dr. Terwilliker. Dr. T has a mad plan to force 500 young boys to practice at his magnificent piano 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Bart is the only hope to save these boys from enslavery. Fantastic sets, screen- play, and even song lyrics were provided by Dr. Suess. Includes the only piano academy known to ever be equipped with cells and surrounded by an electric fence.
I saw this on tv when I was a little kid - maybe six or seven years old - and it scared the crap out of me.
Oh, and Annie...good hero. Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
Wow... what are the coincidences of that??
Posted by Feyd Baron (Member # 1407) on :
Heh, who was one of my heroes? And I'm actually serious about this.
Douglas N. Adams.
I admire him for being as creative as he was, managing a family, and being respected enough to dedicate himself to causes and still be taken seriously.
Dr. Seuss was someone who's writing I grew up with (Go Dog Go being my first book). That, and The Lorax still holds a certain sway over me.
Feyd Baron, DoC
Posted by Erik Slaine (Member # 5583) on :
...and to think that I saw it on Hatracky Street!
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
Oh - I remembered my favorite Dr. Seuss: Fox in Socks.
"When beetles fight these battles in their puddles with their paddles and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles..."
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
(((((((((((((((ANNIE)))))))))))))))))
Wow, you just brought back memories...
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Annie:
Do you like my hat?
(PD Eastman wrote "Go Dog Go," a very fun book to read aloud.)
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
Dr Seuss On Computers
Dr. Seuss Explains Why Computers Sometimes Crash
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, and the bus is interrupted at a very last resort, and the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort, then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash, and your data is corrupted cause the index doesn't hash, then your situation's hopeless and your system's gonna crash!
If the label on the cable on the table at your house says the network is connected to the button on your mouse, but your packets want to tunnel to another protocol, that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,
and your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss, so your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse; then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang, 'cuz sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!
When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy in the disk, and the macro code instructions cause unnecessary risk, then you'll have to flash the memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM then quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom!
::runs back to work::
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
O_o whoo.... I'm dizzy reading that.
Also, I have a debt to P. D. Eastman. His "Are you my mother?" was the first book I ever read. He started me on a good road. THANK YOU Mr. Eastman!!!
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
T: Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
T, that's great!!!
Did you find that somewhere? Or did you write it?
Still ing!
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Well, Annie, "DO you like my hat?"
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
Oddly enough, I found it on AOL
Posted by Gottmorder (Member # 5039) on :
My heros
Burgermeister Nusch of Rottenburg: Any man who saves his city by downing a liter of wine in front of an enemy general has my respect.
Theodore Roosevelt: The original American badass. 'Nuff said'
George S Patton: If that man were alive now and in command of our forces, this whole War on Terror would be over as he would've personally led tank batallion after tank batallion into Afghanistan a few hours after the World Trade Centers were hit, and Osama Bin Laden would be a stain on the desert sand.
quote:"Be seated.
Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.
You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, every one of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.
You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. Americans pride themselves on being He Men and they ARE He Men. Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not supermen.
All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what you call "chicken shit drilling." That, like everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don't give a **** for a man who's not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready for what's to come. A man must be alert at all times if he expects to stay alive. If you're not alert, sometime, a German son-of-an-asshole-bitch is going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a sockful of shit! There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily, all because one man went to sleep on the job. But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before they did.
An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse shit. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about ****ing! We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world.
Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By God, I do.
My men don't surrender, and I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That's not just bull shit either. The kind of man that I want in my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut with his helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German before they knew what the hell was coming off. And, all of that time, this man had a bullet through a lung. There was a real man!
All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain. What if every truck driver suddenly decided that he didn't like the whine of those shells overhead, turned yellow, and jumped headlong into a ditch? The cowardly bastard could say, 'Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands.' But, what if every man thought that way? Where in the hell would we be now? What would our country, our loved ones, our homes, even the world, be like? No, Goddamnit, Americans don't think like that. Every man does his job. Every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important in the vast scheme of this war. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns and machinery of war to keep us rolling. The Quartermaster is needed to bring up food and clothes because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man on K.P. has a job to do, even the one who heats our water to keep us from getting the 'G.I. Shits.'
Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the Goddamned cowards and we will have a nation of brave men. One of the bravest men that I ever saw was a fellow on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of a furious fire fight in Tunisia. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at a time like that. He answered, 'Fixing the wire, Sir.' I asked, 'Isn't that a little unhealthy right about now?' He answered, 'Yes Sir, but the Goddamned wire has to be fixed.' I asked, 'Don't those planes strafing the road bother you?' And he answered, 'No, Sir, but you sure as hell do!' Now, there was a real man. A real soldier. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time, no matter how great the odds. And you should have seen those trucks on the rode to Tunisia. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells bursting all around them all of the time. We got through on good old American guts.
Many of those men drove for over forty consecutive hours. These men weren't combat men, but they were soldiers with a job to do. They did it, and in one hell of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without team effort, without them, the fight would have been lost. All of the links in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable.
Don't forget, you men don't know that I'm here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the Goddamned Germans. Someday I want to see them raise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl, 'Jesus Christ, it's the Goddamned Third Army again and that son-of-a-****ing-bitch Patton.' We want to get the hell over there." The quicker we clean up this Goddamned mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest, too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the credit.
Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I'd shoot a snake!
When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cock suckers by the bushel-****ing-basket.
War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!
I don't want to get any messages saying, 'I am holding my position.' We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!
From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don't give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.
There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON'T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, 'Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.' No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, 'Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!'
That is all."
June 5th, 1944 US Third Army Briefing
Amen general! Amen!
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
I do not like your hat.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
And fox in socks fans, go check out my linky goodness in the socks thread.
Or I suppose I could be persuaded to link again, but only because I like you.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Annie:
Good-bye!!!
Posted by UofUlawguy (Member # 5492) on :
Dr. Seuss is a hero of mine as well. He heads up my list of the five best children's book author/illustrators. My favorite Seuss books tend to be some of the more obscure ones. Such as:
On Beyond Zebra McElligot's Pool If I Ran the Circus/If I Ran the Zoo Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla-Sollew
Great Stuff.
(As an aside, the other 4 children's author/illustrators on the list are Steven Kellogg, Mercer Mayer, Richard Scarry and Shel Silverstein.)
Another hero whose passing I deeply mourned several years ago was Jim Henson. Strangely, I felt almost as bad about Andre the Giant.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)