AUDREY HEPBURN

Audrey Hepburn was born on May 4, 1929 in Belgium. She is famous for being a British actress and humanitarian. She was very modest about her acting ability, but she was still one of the world’s most famous actresses ever. I admire Audrey Hepburn because she did good actions for the world in ways such as devoting much of her life to UNICEF, humanitarian work, and working in some disadvantaged communities in Africa as well as Asia and South America. I also admire her for doing all of this with appendix cancer. Audrey Hepburn unfortunately died of appendix cancer on January 20, 1993 in Switzerland at age 63. Audrey Hepburn is an amazing role model!

In any Noodle Talk, one never knows where a particular question will lead. One older gentleman picked a stirrer that asked: “After years of futility, what have you finally given up trying to understand or do?” I’ve always thought of this in terms of personal relationships or societal trends but this respondent was thinking on an altogether different plane. For him, there was no longer any point in trying to make sense of God’s ways — they were completely beyond his comprehension. Humans had ruined “God’s beautiful creation,” he added with resignation before he left.

I don’t consider myself a religious person at all but his words struck me as very wise — another kind of gift on display at the show.

Generally speaking, however, it wasn’t a place where you’d expect to hear a total stranger describe his long-term battle with appendix cancer, a very rare and aggressive form of the disease which very few patients survive. I met Greg near the end of a long day when I was practically falling asleep on my feet and desperate for coffee. He paused by the booth while his wife was placing a big order for sports souvenirs next door with Randy. When he asked what Noodle Talk was, I suggested he try a question. The one he drew said: “If your life story was made into a multi-part TV movie, how would the series be described in a typical TV program guide?” For half-an-hour or more, he spoke humbly and candidly about what he had been through: a misdiagnosis that intimated he had only two weeks to live, a 14-hour surgery, debilitating monthly pain, bi-annual check-ups that cost thousands of dollars, and surviving against all odds with the help of his doctors, family, church, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Although he would never have wished for his cancer, he was completely at peace with his life. I noticed that I was fully awake when we said good-bye.

A burly middle-aged man told me, in response to a Noodle Talk question, that he was a big fan of Georgia O’Keefe and would have commissioned her to create a work based on his life if she were still alive. Once I picked myself off the floor we had a very engaging conversation. Unfortunately though, I don’t recall ever discussing what he imagined O’Keefe would do with his story.

A female visitor pulled a question that inquired about any torture she may have experienced at the hands of a sibling or friend during childhood. She told me her 11-year-old brother once shot her with a bow and arrow at 50 feet when she was an 8-year-old. The arrow would have punctured her stomach had it not been stopped by a tightly woven knot on the waistband of her jacket. When I expressed astonishment at what happened, she said it was no big deal: her brother was an excellent marksman who did things like that all the time. He ended up in the CIA as an adult which I guess is one of the better places for boys who use their little sisters for target practice.

Question: What erroneous beliefs did you have as a child regarding the natural world, or the way something worked or was done?

Young woman’s answer: As a young girl, I used to think that one got pregnant by swallowing a watermelon seed.

Sounds about right!