By Tim Sanders

I ran across what promised to be an interesting news story about Maria Pantalone, an elementary school principal in Toronto who recently pled guilty to assault charges stemming from a July 30, 2006 incident. Apparently, after enduring the kind of stress only educators know anything about, she decided it was nobler to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them. What she armed herself with was "human excrement," which she then fired with excellent results at a 12-year-old boy. I would’ve been more than happy to write about that story this week, except for the fact that it raises more questions than it answers. The April 4 Reuters article by Scott Valentine states that "the circumstances of the assault cannot be described due to a court publication ban, designed to protect the identity of the victim." The article then teases us by quoting Pantalone as saying "I couldn’t take it anymore. It was total, total frustration." Without more information, the story is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Or something wrapped in something.

The other reason I won’t write about that incident is because my wife said that if I knew what was good for me, I wouldn’t even mention it. I know what’s good for me, so I won’t.

Instead I’ll write about forklifts. There are people out there (and when I say "out there," I mean in Elizabethtown, Tennessee) who think differently from the rest of us. They value things you or I might not necessarily care for. Here is proof of that, found in a recent article in the Johnson City Press:

Deputies put toe and tow together

ELIZABETHTOWN, Tenn. - Deputies put toe and tow together to arrest the subject in the case of a stolen forklift. On Thursday, Carter County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Patrick Johnson discovered a stolen Towmotor forklift lying overturned in the middle of a county road with a pair of shoes and socks wedged underneath.

Around the same time, deputy Jeff Markland was called to Sycamore Shoals Hospital to investigate the statements of a patient with an implausible story of a hit-and-run accident.

Claude White, 34, of 208 Lovers Lane said he was walking down the street when someone ran over his feet and tore off one of his toes.

His wife then told the deputy she had dropped her husband off to drink with his friends on the same street where the forklift had been found.

After tow trucks lifted the Towmotor, Johnson discovered a toe inside one of the shoes.

White was arrested in the theft "due to overwhelming evidence," the sheriff’s department report said.

Yes, this is another story which raises more questions than it answers. But since American forklift stories are much less offensive than stories about Canadian elementary school principals throwing non-approved educational material, which they just happened to have readily available, God knows from where or whom, at youngsters who aggravated them by doing God knows what, we will stick with the forklift story. It is safer to speculate about forklifts. We know more about them than we do about Canadian educational practices.

To most of us, a forklift is not a dream vehicle. Obviously Claude White likes forklifts. But while Claude White may admire them, I do not for a moment believe that Mr. White set out to steal that forklift in the early hours of March 29. I believe that after a night of serious drinking with his buddies, Mr. White did not want to bother calling his wife for a ride home. He was a thoughtful, caring husband who knew in his heart that he’d be better off walking a few miles back home than calling his dear wife at 4 in the morning. Besides which, he was probably unable to push the buttons on his cell phone. I can see him now, stumbling unsteadily down the street past that factory with the bright yellow forklift parked alongside its loading dock.

"DANG ... A ... UM ... A FORK ...A FORK ... LIFT! Ain’t it purty. I sure would like to ... um ... to sit on that and ... rest for a ... while. URP!"

And after struggling for a few minutes, incurring only minor injuries, he managed to climb aboard. SURPRISE–the key was in the ignition. It was some sort of a sign. God was telling him he didn’t have to wear himself out walking home. He could borrow the forklift. The pretty yellow forklift. Oh sure, his license had been revoked, but you don’t need a license to drive a forklift.

And soon Claude White was cruising down the road in that stylish forklift, doing a brisk 4 or 5 mph, with the wind in his hair and the strains of that Steppenwolf classic coursing through his powerful brain:

"Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the–URP–highway
Lookin’–URP–adventure
And whatever nah nah nah nah.
Yeah darlin’ gonna somethin’ somethin’
Take the world in a–URP–in place
Somethin’ somethin’ your guns at once
And s’plode nah nah somethin’ else!"

And even without headlights he’d probably have made it home with all ten toes intact if he hadn’t tried to hop that curb and laid his big yellow dream machine down. Or maybe he stopped for a moment to see if he could move a Volkswagen that somebody had carelessly left parked in front of their house, and when he raised the forks his load shifted and the top heavy Towmotor just sort of slo-o-o-w-ly toppled over. We can only speculate.

On the positive side, Claude was lucky it was only his toe that he lost under that forklift. Imagine him at the emergency room trying to explain how some hit-and-run driver had run over his head and tore it off while he was innocently napping in the street. What a load of ...

Let's just say he couldn’t have sold a load like that, not even to a Canadian elementary school student.