George
Booth Roast
Today MABE took time to honor a great and
beloved member... George Booth. As George sat like
"a salami between two roses" (his wife Peggy and his daughter
Laura), members took turns reminiscing about the good 'ole days
with George.
Stuart Schindler kicked things off with the
following speech...
Good morning, my name
is Frank Kush.
So all of you U of A fans can kiss my Tush.
It's not true that I hit that Rutledge kid in the Mouth
Actually, I kicked him a bit further down South
But this morning we honor a man heading towards "Retire-Ment"
A zipper for his mouth would be truly heaven Sent
Peggy, Peggy it's good to see You
We have a job for you to Do
Keep George silent until a quarter To
George fills his "prescriptions" South of Nogales
When everyone know the best drugs come from Los Angeles
Good luck to Peggy and George
As for me, I'm heading back to Valley Forge
Sincerely,
Stu Schindler
Next in line, Mark Dreher. Unfortunately, he was a little confused. He thought we
were honoring George Bush. Most of his jabs about
misbehaving daughters and mispronounced words had to be tossed
out. But Mark could offer his condolences to Peggy.
You see, Mark's wife is a UofA graduate, history buff and
huge Packers fan. She even accessorized Mark with a
cheese head which he proudly wore.
Greg Stewart took the podium next. Greg
also came accessorized today. In fact he was mistaken for
a member of the Village People out in the parking lot. To
make a short story long, Greg used the letters in George's name
to describe him.
|
G |
Green Bay Packers fan!
He is the original. |
|
E |
Excellent. He excelled
at everything he did. |
|
O |
Outstanding. A
colleague used this term to describe George.
Whenever they needed him, they always found him "out
standing in a field". |
|
R |
Ridin' & Rollin'. This
is what George did on the Little Outfit Ranch. |
|
G |
Generous. He was always
generous with his comments and wisdom. He
liked to help people. |
|
E |
Ethical. In an age
where people often lack this quality, George shines. |
| |
|
|
P |
P is not his middle initial
but "Passionate" is definitely his middle name. |
| |
|
|
B |
Beautiful. He is a
beautiful person with beautiful qualities and
vocabulary. |
|
O |
Ornery, opinionated, on & on
& on... |
|
O |
Older than dirt!
|
|
T |
The UofA wildcats. |
|
H |
Honesty...and huge for the
HUGE fan club he has here at MABE. |
Roman Okonowski took a turn to describe
George. Who is George Booth? His is a historian.
He is a man of many words, most of which contained
wisdom. He is a man that is always late...at least to
MABE. He was even
honored in an old newsletter for his perennial tardiness.
Roman remembers fondly the stories George
would tell. He could tell Civil War stories like he was
actually there...maybe he was. Roman went back
through the MABE newsletter archives to pull up more fond
moments of George at his finest. Here are just a few...
-
02/03/95 - At the end of one of George's
speeches Peggy quipped "My George! There's no one else
like him!"
-
03/03/95 - Peggy and George were
celebrating 10 wonderful years together. Peggy had
spoke about how they met and someone asked her why they were
such a great match. Her response, "He is such an easy
target!"
-
03/10/95 - A guest speaker at one meeting
didn't need much time to get to know one of George's great
qualities...He commented that George was "obviously a man
that doesn't like to be rushed".
-
07/28/95 - It was the elections of '95
and George Booth was running for office. It was a
historical moment. George Booth's speech was shorter
than Keith Miller's and Keith wasn't even there!
-
05/15/98 - MABE was having one of its
round table discussions and in true "George-fashion", George
was not at a loss for words. I admit that I did take
some editorial privileges when I paraphrased George's
comments by writing "yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah".
-
02/04/00 - George Booth shared with the
group a recent conversation that he had with his insurance
agent. George is an intelligent man but he just could
not understand the complicated insurance bill that he
received. His agent told him that the easiest way to
solve his dilemma was to just pay the bill.
Next on tap, Dave Lathrop narrated a video
that was put together to honor George. According to this
video, George was admired by many famous figures (talk about
taking editorial privileges). At the end, Dave described
George as someone he really respected. He noted that we
may get another realtor in the group but we will NEVER get
another George Booth.
Althea Bussert to a moment to reminisce about
some of the social events that she attended with George.
George is like the Jekyll and Hyde of the fashion industry.
On their trip to Seattle he was named Mr. Glamour for the way he
was dressed. But this was not the case in Taos, New
Mexico. Althea and her partners-in-crime were on a
snowball throwing spree. They were going door-to-door
attacking people. When Peggy opened the door of
their motel room the snowballers were speechless. There
George was standing in his night cap and night shirt. They
plastered him!
The privilege of being last speaker went to
George's own daughter, Laura. Laura explained to the group
that George struggled with his decision to resign from MABE.
But she was one-sided in her advise. She, along with the
rest of her family, wanted to spend time with their dad.
George is surrounded by family that adores him. George was
a personal role model for Laura. He trained her to be the
successful realtor that she is today. When she talks to
other more "affluent" realtors they initially talk down to her
like she is a young kid just getting started in the business.
It isn't until after she tells them that her dad and mentor is
none other than George Booth that their tone changes and she is
given the respect that she deserves. George provided her
with a great foundation of honesty and ethics. She does
everything the way her father did it...just a little faster.
Laura also took the opportunity to poke fun at her dad.
She told the story of when he went in for one of his many cancer
surgeries. The anesthesiologist commented that he never
met anyone that talked so much during surgery!
Finally, the floor was given to the man of
the hour. Always the model member, George began by
giving out several leads. He echoed the sentiments that
Roman Okonowski made several years ago when he said he would
still come to MABE even if he never received another lead.
This "cancer-thing" has made George think
about a lot of things. It made him take a hard look at how
he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Family and God
won out. He is going to spend more time with his kids and
grandchildren and also do hospital ministry.
Although George handed over his letter of
resignation from MABE this morning, he will still come back to
visit a group that is dear to his heart. He thanked
everyone for the friendships, the fun and the opening of doors.
Goodbye George...You will be missed.
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