Originally published on 25 July 2013
The motto over in Kansas City is "When you care enough to send the very best," and sometimes I do. But I'm more of a Someecards.com kinda gal (though you should be careful with that link; sometimes the cards get a little spicy). "However old you are is the new 30" is more my voice than "When I think of you my heart smiles." Or, you know,
Count your age by friends, not years;
Count your life by smiles, not tears.
You'll recognize this, of course, because I ran a post about it a couple Saturdays ago. I was just sure John Lennon was not the originator of that little couplet, but researching it was beyond me. So while I was still stewing about it, I consulted an expert.
Garson O'Toole calls his blog Quote Investigator: Dedicated to Tracing Quotations. (It's one of several quote-busting sites I look in on.*) And in less than a week, kids, I had an answer.
I was right. Oh. Em. Gee. That little bit of sap did come from a birthday card:
The lines supplied by the questioner were part of a larger poem that appeared on a birthday card by 1927. The authorship of the poem is somewhat uncertain. Dixie Lee Crosby is currently the leading candidate, but Dixie Willson is also a possibility. The poem was created before John Lennon entered this world. Evidence connecting him to the two lines of the work is weak. The linkage apparently was established years after Lennon's death in 1980.
Mr. O'Toole sent an email to inform me he'd researched the quote, and added that he appreciated my educational effort to sensitize readers to the problem of false quotations. So let me say it again: please do check before you quote. And BrainyQuote, Thinkexist, Wisdomquotes, and Goodreads (and all the rest) are not good places to check, ever.
Man, I love the Internet!
* See "Oh Those Miserable, Miserable Quotes."
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