Road Apples by Tim Sanders
May 24, 2010
|
Blind jackasses and elephants The other day, while sitting in the living room trying to listen to my son tell my wife about an article he’d recently read, I was absolutely certain I heard him say that the ancient Mayans had made grits out of fine granules of sand mixed with bat guano. This immediately caught my attention, because I’ve always been very particular about what I put in my mouth. “BAT GUANO, AND SAND?” I said. “Couldn’t they find anything else? Corn or soybeans or something?” David asked me just what the dickens I was talking about. “Guano grits,” I said. “Who in his right mind would eat grits made out of bat guano and sand?” This struck both David and Marilyn as hilarious, and after they’d composed themselves and wiped the tears from their eyes, David explained to me that what he’d said was “bricks,” not “grits.” My hearing is what it is, which is really bad. I have an appointment to visit an audiology clinic in Birmingham for a hearing aid evaluation, but that won’t be until July, so for now I’m stuck with what I’ve got. I can hear vowels fairly well, but consonants always mess me up. “Bricks” become “grits,” and sometimes worse. Which brings us to this week’s column, which deals not with hearing impairment, but visual impairment. There is a famous poem by John G. Saxe entitled “The Blind Men and the Elephant.” It tells the story of six blind Hindustanis who each examine a different portion of an elephant’s anatomy and then argue over whether it’s a tree trunk or a wall or a rope or a spear or a fan or a Nash Rambler with fender skirts. It’s a very entertaining poem, and although at the end the elephant escapes while the men are trying to whack each other with their canes, no one is seriously injured. The idea of blind men and elephants, quite naturally, led to the notion of writing a poem about a congressional delegation and a document that looms large in our nation’s history. The Blind men and the Bill of Rights There were six men, from Washington, By Congress all assigned, To go and read a document, (Though all of them were blind,) That each by careful study Might edify his mind. The first approached the Bill of Rights, It was the holy grail, But the wording was unclear because the copy Was in Braille. So he felt the right to bare arms Should include “bare breasts and tails.” The second, fumbling with his cane, Cried: “Correctness ’neath my hand! In Amendment One it seems to state, That hate speech should be banned, So religious freedom can only be free, When sermons are tepid and bland!” The third laid his eager fingers, On Amendment Number Four. It contained the Search and Seizure clause He’d heard of it before. “I used to have seizures myself,” he said, “But I don’t drink anymore.” A fourth with apprehension, Read a bit, then said with glee, “I’ve found the meaning of the thing, It’s clear as clear can be. We have the right to health care, And free access to HD.” The fifth who managed to move his hands, O’er “Double Jeopardy” Said what that Bill was all about, Even the blindest could see. To him the Bill of Rights was just A quiz show on TV. The sixth stepped in and groped about, Found rights none had read at all. The right to home loans, the right to cell phones, And the right to free long distance calls. And nobody noticed that instead of the Bill, He was reading the switch on the wall. So argued these blind men of Washington As the air turned bluer and bluer, Each convinced his logic was true, The others contending theirs truer. And while some of the blind were partially right, They were all mostly full of ... manure. That is my poem. I asked my wife to read it, and she did. She said she’d honestly never read anything quite like it. I asked her if that meant she thought it was a deep, meaningful poem, or just a lot of silliness, and she said “YES!” I would have asked her to expand on that a bit, but with my hearing problem I’d probably misinterpret her explanation, too. |