When
I was growing up, The Buffalo Evening News had an article on
the comic page called Famous Fables. I don't remember if it
was there every day or just once or twice a week. But it was just a
paragraph or two long – usually an anecdote involving a celebrity
or politician or someone else we comics readers would likely know
from the news. I would read Famous Fables even if I did
not know who the anecdote was about – it was a way of entertaining
myself, procrastinating, before leaving the comic page and getting
back to whatever needed doing around the house – chores, homework.
The comic page was kind of like the internet today – one more
incredibly important bit of trivia I just have to read about,
and then I'll do my work!
One
day in senior year English class Erma B, Mrs. M, was ridiculing us on
our ignorance of cultural references. Now there were a lot of bright
students in the class – I would have thought she was just directing
the insult at me, but from the look on her face and her stance
at the podium, Mrs. M appeared to be ticked off with everyone. “I'll
prove it to you!” she said.
Then
she took from her desk a piece of newspaper page and held it before
her. Mrs M said it was Famous Fables from The Buffalo
Evening News. Things started to look up for me! She was
complaining about cultural references, and yet I read Famous
Fables – perhaps I would be the exception to her complaint in
this particular instance!
Well
that hope was quickly thwarted when she started reading. The story
was completely unfamiliar to me. Either I had missed it when it
appeared in the paper, or it was from a time before I started
reading the comics – Mrs M might have had the article from years
past.
I
will paraphrase what the Famous Fables article said. A famous
person, I do not recall who, was asked to introduce a speaker at an
important ceremony. His speaker was going to be the third one to
talk. When the first man got up to introduce the first speaker, he
said that his person would light up the audience's evening even more
brightly than the full moon shining outside that night! Well how does
one top that? The man who got up to introduce the second speaker said
that his person would light up their evening even more brightly than
the sun that shines during the day! Wow – you don't get any
brighter than that! When the third man got up to introduce his
speaker, he stood at the podium and simply said, “Ladies and
Gentlemen, I give you.....Joshua!”
And
that was the end of the Famous Fable. Mrs. M ended with a
flourish and just glared at us. Her look was hostile – she seemed
to truly despise us for our ignorance. The room was quiet. If anyone
actually got the Famous Fable – and I'm thinking now that
some of them did, I was unaware of it at the time. My brain
was totally blank. What the heck did it mean?
Mrs.
M was kind enough to then explain. It was a Biblical reference
– Joshua was fighting a great battle and he prayed to God for the
sun and the moon to stand still – and they stood still until Joshua
and his armies had victory over their enemies.
So
in the Famous Fables – the third speaker being introduced as
Joshua implied that he was more powerful than the first two speakers
who had been introduced as the sun and the moon – who else has ever
made the moon and the sun stop their motion through the sky?
Wow!
That's a pretty good story!
Mrs.
M was upset that we did not know the simplest of references from the
Bible. Even if we aren't particularly religious, we should not avoid
the books that learned people talk about – we are ignorant
otherwise!
After
that I decided my first son would be named Joshua –
greater than the moon and the sun!
And my children would know the Bible – not just for the cultural
references, but also so they would know what everyone else around
them is talking about historically, politically, religiously – and
then they can also use if for their own faith if they so choose.
Neither
of my children is named Joshua, and I do have stories for how they,
my daughters, got their names – both inspired by the Famous
Fable tale.
Would any of this have come to pass if not for Mrs. M
and her disdain for a class that did not meet her standard of
excellence?
297
20151024 Famous Fables
No comments:
Post a Comment