"Turtle on a fencepost" (1979)

[Jonathan Lighter]

And it's turtles all the way down.

  JL

Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Stephen Goranson
Subject: Re: "Turtle on a fencepost" (1979)
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Barry Popik asked about this phrase and mentioned the book,
A turtle on a fencepost : little lessons of large importance /
Allan C Emery, Intro. by Billy Graham 1979 117 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. Waco, Tex. :
Word Books.

It has a chapter by the same name. Here's a paragraph from pages 13-14:

One morning I picked up [at Boston Logan Airport] Dr. Robert Lamont to
drive him
to a meeting. He was flying in from Pittsburgh where he at that time
was pastor
of the First Presbyterian Church. In the relaxed drive to Hamilton he spoke of
his work in such a way that I felt he viewed himself as a spectator to
what God
had done through his ministry. I suggested that [/14] much of what had been
accomplished must be because of his gifts and talents. He replied,
"Allan, when
I was a schoolboy we would occasionally see a turtle on a fencepost and
when we
did, we knew someone had put him there. He didn't get there by himself.
That is
how I see my own life. I'm a turtle on a fencepost."

Stephen Goranson

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