"What Happens?"

When you leave your pink elephant out in the cold too long?



Well even with a scarf on he turns blue of course!



For those of you who don't know, one of the few claims to fame of our little town of St Thomas is the fact that Jumbo the elephant was killed here on September 15, 1885. Hence the statue, which was built I believe to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of his death. The pink colour came about as a result of the humour of a local painter who was commissioned to spruce him up about 10 years ago. Alas it was only the primer coat and he was back to elephant grey within a few days.

The blue shrink wrap is to my knowledege the first time that he wore a winter coat of any kind. I assume it is intended to keep water from entering any cracks and causing deterioration as it freezes. Who knows? Who cares?

So that's today's history lesson and today's humour all rolled into one.

But I also have a little wisdom to share with you today, compliments of Colby. This is almost verbatim a conversation we had today while on the way to the hockey rink.

Grampa: What are you thinking about Colby?
Colby: Nothing!
Grampa: Absolutely nothing? Your mind is blank?
Colby: Yah, something like that.
Grampa: Wow, thats hard to believe? Your mind is like a blank sheet of paper?
Colby: Well actually my mind has more than one partment.
Grampa: Really? What does that mean, your mind has more than one compartment?
Colby: Well some compartments are where my memories are but the compartment I'm thinking about right now is when I'm gonna be 8 and right now it's still blank because I'm only 7!

I think there's a message in there. When we are kids the future is a blank piece of paper. Over time and with much coercion from society we write all kinds of stuff on the sheet. Dream stuff that causes us grief when it doesn't come true, and painful stuff that causes us grief thinking it may come true. Today and even tomorrow I'm gonna try to be more like my grandson. I'm pretty sure that if he woke up tomorrow and found out that he was on an airplane on his way to Mexico that he would be quite happy. And so shall I be! I promise!

“It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us, we can dodge an elephant, but we can't a fly"---Josh Billings

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant - An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent!"---Dr. Seuss

love
peter