The most famous proverbs, (detail)
Source: Fundación Empresas Polar
They are colorful brushstrokes that enlighten and brighten conversations.
They slip out of my mouth almost without me noticing, from some remote corner of my childhood. Sometimes people laugh.
Yes, proverbs.
My father, like any good plainsman (Barinas State, Venezuela), could find one for every occasion. It was no wonder he was known as an affable, kind, elegant, and funny man.
To illustrate this last point, I’ll try to describe a trivial situation, a trip to the movies with my daughter, using my dad’s repertoire:
“The afternoon was colder than a spiritist’s gaze. I bundled up, but I still left the house shivering like a pigeon on a wire. Once in the car, my daughter called me to hurry up because we were going to be late for the movie. When we arrived, the theater was emptier than Sucre’s tomb (*), but after a while, it filled up with people who talked more than a lost soul reappears. In short, the movie was as boring as listening to a chess game on the radio (this one’s from my own pocket), in other words, enough to put snakes to sleep.”
I’ll leave it there so as not to test your patience.
I hope you enjoyed these lines, and if not, feel free to give me a piece of your mind.
Finding inspiration each week isn’t easy, and sometimes I get more tangled up than someone who kicked a harp, but when I finally manage to put together something decent enough to share, I’m happier than a kid with new shoes.
I think that I’m just like my dad, and proud of it.
(*) The expression “lonelier than Sucre’s tomb” originated due to the anonymity and neglect in which the remains of Marshal Antonio José de Sucre lay for seven decades after his assassination in 1830.
