One of You Clowns is Going to Answer “Eating Cheetos”
Posted by Moose on June 21st, 2006. Filed under: Love.At the age of 79, acting teacher Sanford Meisner was hit by a truck and dragged two city blocks. Upon arriving at the hospital, doctors were shocked he was alive. Not just because he was a 79-year-old man with intimate knowledge of the front end of a delivery truck, but because he had throat cancer. Meisner was informed that his larynx needed immediate removal. He replied, “You might as well kill me now because if I can’t teach, I don’t want to live.” Five years later, Meisner was still teaching. Without a larynx. He learned to speak by swallowing air.
Inspirational stories don’t get much better than that.
Meisner was fond of asking his students, “What would they have to kill you to stop you from doing?” For Meisner, it was teaching. A large truck and throat cancer only slowed him down, it wasn’t until his death that Meisner left the classroom.
Being a spring chicken myself, I tend to approach that question from approximately 82 years in the other direction. What were you doing when you were four years old that you’re still doing in some capacity today? Dismantling clock radios? Painting the walls? Kicking puppies?
I was dancing around a kindergarten classroom and writing stories about my dolls. Yes, I am the girliest girl to ever embarrass her fleece-wearing, rock-climbing, motorcycle-riding bed mate. Moving on.
It’s not a strictly scientific method. I danced to “We Five” and wrote unfortunately worded stories when I was a kid, but I also enjoyed sipping the detergent in blowing bubbles. (It made the drinking fountain water foam in my mouth.) I try to avoid that kind of thing now. But childhood proclivities are not a bad starting point. Most of my outside-work-time is spent dancing and writing. And being a slacker, but that’s less inspirational.
You wouldn’t have to kill me to get me to stop dancing – one solidly placed car accident could manage that – but writing will be something I always do. Even when I’m dead, I’ll probably haunt one or two of you, making you turn on your laptop in the middle of the night to decipher my ramblings through a Ouija board. Hint: Don’t give me your address. Though you may not have to. Saint Peter probably has one hell of a rolodex.
What would they have to kill you to stop you from doing?
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