The Man With the Winning Smile
By Ken K. Gourdin
Author’s Note: Although I am the author (I wrote this in high school back in the mid-’80s), and although I did not previously post this piece on line, it can be found elsewhere on the net, at http://www.sugardoodle.net/Stories_Thoughts_Poems/Smiling/The%20Winning%20Smile.htm. I can’t remember when and where I last met the person who originally posted it, nor can I remember giving her permission to do so. I e-mailed her asking her to refresh my memory on those details and telling her that, while I am flattered by her use of my work, I would prefer to formalize the necessary permission and asking how to contact her to do so. I never received a reply. (To her credit [and at the risk of sounding redundant], she did give me proper, um, credit.) I figured, “Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” And I decided I might as well be the second person to post it on line (it is my work, after all).
There once was a man with a Winning Smile,
The winningest smile in the land.
And no matter how many times this man smiled
He never ran out: he had a limitless supply on hand.
He spent his days walking far and near,
Spreading this smile, along with good cheer.
And by and by, the idea caught on, and others began to smile, too:
For this man had taught them how—he taught them until they knew.
And then one day, crippled by age, he had to give up his life’s work.
He could no longer travel at a whirlwind pace
spreading smiles along the way.
But that one smile—The Winning Smile—
Never did leave his face.
And though the old man’s gone, his legacy still lives on:
Just look in the mirror and smile, and you can see it too—
That Winning Smile smiling back at you!
