The Blind Men & The Elephant

Part 13 of 31

The Found Another Body

Someone came upon a cluster of lost blind Hindoos, and knowing that blind Hindoos are usually looking for an elephant to feel up, led them on, “His pen is this way and, believe me, this elephant, he means business!”

They thought it over, "He 'means business,' that can only mean personal relationships up the wazoo, unless the colloquialisms have changed since junior high PE. But blind as we are, we must feel our way through whatever challenges present themselves. And maybe we'll mitigate some of the bodily thrusting and live through the experience."

OK, so as not to make a short story any longer than it has to be, they made their way into the pen, reaching out, feeling here and there. The first said, “Wait, spread out! Let’s take it one at a time, and if there’s any survivors, long life to you.”

He approached the elephant and got right down to business but was a little too frisky, making him the first victim to get kicked to death, just like that. The elephant’s feet came up like a World Series outfielder running for the fence, with each blow landing harder than the last just to make his point. The blind man was dead.

The second felt around very gingerly, giving proper attention to the trunk, then made his way gradually toward the business. But he mistakenly thought he’d felt two different elephants’ business. The comparison did him in. “The first elephant was properly hung, this one’s a living embarrassment!’ There being but the one elephant, he showed he was one of a kind, a true stud, and kicked the blind man to death.

The third felt the elephant’s tiny tail and second his business. His mistaken assumption was the tail was the business and the business the trunk. “I’ve never felt a tinier trunk, and as for his business, it’s so small it’s an afterthought!” At which point the elephant’s sufficiently proportionate feet kicked him to death.

The fourth “blind man,” having feigned blindness for years for sympathy and free food, as well as the constant ability blind Hindoo men have to couple with well-hung elephants, knew which end was which and which label was appropriate to which organ. He stayed with the elephant through the long day, then the long night. Because it wasn't till morning that the townsmen came with the elephant's daily gift of peanuts. The “blind” man quickly reached out and ate the offering. The elephant immediately kicked the “blind” man to death, thinking, “You guys can feel up my dick all day long, but don’t mess with my nuts!”

Time Waits For No Boy

That's what I'm saying: Time never gets ahead of itself. The truth of which is pretty well settled, although you'd think if anyone could do it, Time could. I'm fairly stressed out by time. I keep it, I mark it, I jump to its tunes, and I rue it.

I tell myself I'm not afraid to die. And I'm often convinced it's so. As I've been thinking about Time, as I am now, I know it's out there as Terminus B, Terminus A being when I came into the world much Time ago. Over 60 years, so you tell me. You never know what might happen. Car wreck, ice slick, jealous husband or wife, bar fight gone bad, pool cue against the temple, or just plain old age with a bad health chaser. Something's gonna do me in, all in good Time.

I went to see a friend of mine, who's something of an Eastern kind of guy. He's respectful of our Western ways -- to a point -- but he thinks the Easterners (Indians, Tibetans, etc., who really are just Westerners if you traveled the opposite way to get to them) have the inside track on wisdom. Which, incidentally, is how I thought of Native Americans on old westerns. They could put their ear to the ground and describe the enemy to the shoelaces. It's uncanny. I respected them but never had the good sense to root for them against the cowboys. A big regret.

All right -- be all that as it may -- I dasn't waste Time! As my Eastern-loving friend told me, quoting the Mahabharata, "Existence and non-existence, pleasure and pain all have Time for their root. Time createth all things and Time destroyeth all creatures. It is Time that burneth creatures," etc., blah blah blah. Think I'm afraid of time? Bah! Not for a second! Until I start thinking, You know, maybe they're right. Mom told me I was born at a particular time. That I transitioned from diapers to overalls at a particular time. And that she would leave me at a particular time, probably when she changed her last poopy overalls, which would kill anyone.

All that being as it may, I must write the things on my mind! To leave behind at least a few snippets of my existence, as I feel like I could croak at any moment. So what do I have on my mind?

[Nebulous clouds of wisdom appear at the window. The visage of a dear old man, beard down to his feet and the look of wrinkles about the eyes, appears. He touches my forehead and I'm immediately filled with the wisdom of a schoolroom from long ago.]

I see a boy with his teacher, learning his spelling. But for much of his life muteness has left him speechless, and the teacher makes allowances. "George, spell 'A'." He taps his foot once. "Good, now spell 'B." He taps his foot twice. "Great job, now spell C." He taps his foot three times. And it goes that way through the alphabet. "Very good," the teacher says.

She gives him a much bigger assignment. To write out, "I'm a good boy."

George is aghast. Thinking, "I have to write out all that?" He starts his tapping, tapping, tapping, feverishly tapping with the teacher doing her best to transcribe the flurry of taps. He seemed to be off track, up and dancing, his feet becoming terribly sore from the amount of tapping and the feverishness with which he wrote. The teacher could barely write, count, and match up the taps with the alphabet. It was frankly all she could do

Finally, though, she looked at her pad and George's message was clear: "Look, teacher, if you expect me to stand here and write all day, especially something as long and involved as 'I'm a good boy," I'm going to need a pair of boots to protect my feet, at least a pair of socks -- something! -- because anything that takes that much tapping is sure to severely damage my feet, to the point that I may never recover from it, even if I lived to be 12! And especially with the roughness of this old-fashioned wooden, splintery floor! Give me something shorter to write and I'll be glad to complete the assignment to the best of my ability."

The moral of the story has to do with Time -- how it's only as long as it is -- and Feet, that you give a teacher an inch and she'll take two.

The Three Trucks

In my travels today, I saw three trucks going up the interstate together. It made me think of this story:

The three truckers all worked for the same truck line. It was their job to get the company's goods from Point A to Point B. The boss himself sent them forth, giving them only two rules: 1) Do not go over the speed limit; and, 2) Stay together.

But as they drove, the first one started thinking: Being first, I have to set the pace, but it's almost impossible to go the speed limit 100% of the time. If anyone will be guilty of breaking the rule, obviously they'll blame me. So if that's what they're thinking, I may as well fully exceed the limit and dare the others to keep up. If they keep up, we're all guilty. And if they don't keep up, they'll be guilty of breaking the second rule. Plus, it might be to our benefit to get there early, showing our efficiency. Very brash, but he had them over a barrel.

The second one's thinking: He's speeding up and we're falling behind. He's going at least 10 miles over the limit. I shouldn't go that fast, and yet I can't fall behind. Does one of the boss' two rules take precedence over the other? Surely the more important rule would be not to break the law, and yet, perhaps the first driver knows what he's doing. If he gets there quicker, with more efficiency, maybe he'll be commended. And we'll be condemned because we weren't efficient, while breaking the other rule anyway. So he speeds up.

The third one brings up the rear. He thinks: What's this? Everyone's going way too fast, but I need to keep up. I have the advantage in that there's no one behind me to obey the law and report me. And neither of the guys in front can report me because they're breaking the rule themselves. The thing is, if we share the guilt, we will also share the consequences of our actions, if there are any. If we're asked about speeding, we can always lie. Whereas anything could happen if we're separated; violating the second rule might show us to be incompetent.

The third one's thoughts continue: It's obviously better to arrive together than for me to keep to the speed limit and break the second rule. Or is it? Maybe the boss has it fairly well timed out, and if we speed we'll get there too early. I believe it might be easier to explain falling behind than breaking the speed limit. What would've been the reason to stay together in the first place if it didn't have something to do with mutual accountability? So he slows down.

The second driver then notices the third truck falling behind and thinks it over: It could be there's something wrong with his truck. Meaning we're not together. Or it could be that he's had a sudden realization of the dangers of getting there too fast. He's probably mentally calculating the advantage he'll have over us as to why he fell behind. He'll have us dead to rights, accusing us of violating both rules, whereas he would've violated only one rule. Plus, if I fall behind and driver number one continues on, that will put me in good not only with the third driver but the boss when we're questioned. Because there's safety in numbers, two against one. The first guy will show up, having sped, along with our united accusation, and he'll be blamed for our falling behind, our conscience having overridden the rule. So the second truck slows down.

The first driver keeps going for a while, then notices no one's in the rear view mirror. Of course he knows how terrible it'll look if he shows up without them. So he slows down and completely turns around. He drives back, thinking it over: We've all violated both rules, but if we get back in the pack, we can talk it over and decide mum's the word. Then we can drive the speed limit and stay together, as we probably should have in the first place.

He gets back to the other two, who have pulled over to the side of the road. They're glad he shows up and explains the situation: We're all equally guilty, leaving out the part of him being the first to speed and leave them behind. The others agree: We'll be a lot better off if we don't point fingers, but if we simply go the speed limit and get there together.

Which turns out to be exactly what happened! The boss says, "You stuck to the speed limit and you stayed together. Excellent! I honestly didn't think you could do it." He gives them all huge raises and his three beautiful daughters' hands in marriage. Finally, years later, the boss dies and leaves the trucking company to his honorable sons-in-law, the happiest ending any story can ever have.

The Legend Of Paul Boone

I've got kind of a heartwarming story today, of a true incident, something that actually happened and that I personally witnessed. This is true, I can't believe my good luck in just happening to be there when it all went down. But, who knows, maybe it was divine intervention, with me being right where God wanted me to be so I could witness this...

Well, I've thrown out enough clues, so you've probably already guessed what it was. Yes, that's it, I just happened to be at the public library, and just happened to be passing through the hall when they were doing the children's story hour! I was really in a hurry, and it's the weirdest coincidence that I overheard what I did, making me stop and linger just a little while.

I was passing by, like I said in a hurry, when I heard the story lady reading something about Paul Boone and Babe the Blue Ox. And I stopped dead in my tracks, because I couldn't believe it. That was always my most favorite story when I was a kid. And honestly I figured it was dead and gone as a story, since I know that kids are into so much more these days, with Pac Man, pogs, Pikachu, Pokemon, and Game Boys. I didn't think they still sat still long enough to hear the old stories!

But there they were, just like me all those years ago, looking up at the story lady, and I think she might've been the same one I listened to 50-some years ago, a little longer in the tooth, of course, but still fighting the good fight of reading books to little kids. So I lingered, I listened, and I heard her pleasant reading, only interrupted occasionally by a raspy smoker's cough, then the kids asking pertinent questions about where Paul got Babe, etc.

Good grief, it really took me back! Because, I actually can remember most of the details of Paul Boone's story, and how he had such big footprints that he created all the lakes in Minnesota! And how he had Babe the Blue Ox there as a kind of sidekick, or maybe a friend, a kemosabee, and someone to help carry their supplies.

I was going to go on for a while about Paul Boone, but, guess what, some of the details are eluding me. I thought I remembered them all. Let's see ... he had something to do with shoveling snow in Minnesota, I think, like in their very hard winters. Father Winter would be blowing from the North and Paul Boone would blow right back from the South, thereby keeping most of the snow out. Something like that.

Then there was the aforementioned ox, Babe the Blue Ox, who was blue because after Paul Boone stamped out all the lakes, he beheld his own image in the water so often and so long, that he became blue. Kind of a karmic thing, whereas he was normal color before the change. Then Paul Boone had to think, "Do I want a blue ox? Won't people point and stare?" He thought it over for an entire century -- the basic time-frame of legends being a lot longer than our own time -- and decided, Babe was cool even if he was blue.

OK, now I remember another detail. Paul Boone went through Minnesota with a big axe, the head of which was the size of a locomotive. He was able to cut down a fairly big forest in a few hours. He did that, providing lumber for the people settling the area. Which is probably why the people of Minnesota are so terribly lazy even to this day; they're always expecting someone else to show up and do their work for them.

I'm glad I passed through the library when I did. Because otherwise, you know, I wouldn't have heard what I heard when I heard it. I would've merely gone there and done whatever else it was I would've done.