The elephant, the airplane and the model “T”
by Brad Nelson
I’ll have to share a wild tale I heard from Kennon. A certain hay hauler was traveling what seemed to be the direct route to the remote dairy he was bringing hay to. The road went from paved, to gravel, to dirt, and then deteriorated to “the cow-trail meanders off among the sagebrush”.
After a long time on the latter “road” with no sign of human habitation, and after crossing a couple of small streams, the road, so much of it as there was, was blocked by wild beasts native to the area. After exercising all the patience he could muster, our hero cut loose with a couple of blasts from the truck’s air horn. Now he had the attention of the animals, but he wished he had not.
The animals were elephants which charged his truck, rolled it over, pulled him out of the cab and played catch with him until he was able to crawl under the wreckage where the elephants could no longer reach him. The elephants wandered off after they had eaten his load. This, by the way, took place in South Africa.
One of the fellows living in Royal City is from South Africa. I ran the tale of the elephants and the hay truck by him. Petrie shook his head and laughed. “You do not ever want to honk your horn at an elephant,” he explained. “For whatever reason, they take it as a challenge.” He said that the driver in the story was lucky to be alive.
Then he told me his own elephant story. He was on a drive in one of the game preserves in his native land. Driving down a hill, as he rounded a bend in the road he found the roadway ahead blocked by about two hundred elephants meandering across the roadway. By the time he spotted the elephants he was closer to them than he was comfortable with. He stopped his vehicle and waited. He explained that when elephants travel the big bull elephant who is in the rear is the big boss and the guardian of the herd.
When the elephants had almost finished crossing the road, Petrie’s foot that was on the brake pedal tired, and the vehicle he was in started to creep forward. When he realized it was moving, he jammed on the brake hard, which stopped the vehicle, and made a small noise, and attracted the attention of the giant old bull elephant at the rear of the herd. The old bull turned and started running toward Petrie.
“All I could do was put it in reverse and stand on the gas!” exclaimed Petrie. “I had no idea I could back a rig up a crooked road so fast, and keep it on the road. It was a steep hill and the elephant was about ten feet from me when he got tired and slowed down and then stopped and returned to the herd.” Then he added, “I did not stop for a long way farther back up the road.”
On the subject of eating the load – one of the dairies I used to deliver hay to required that I pull the truck into the corral and unload over the feed bunk to the stack area. The cows were not removed from the area while we unloaded. We had to move right along since the bovines would get right after a thorough taste-test of the hay as we unloaded. Occasionally they would undermine the load to the point that some of the bales would fall off the truck into the corral.
One time this dairyman commented that the cows were not eating the hay I had delivered as well as he thought they should. I told him to just put some bales in the back of his pick-up and park it in the corral and the cows would eat every stem. The cows like it better if they think they are stealing the hay.
Some time back Harbor Freight Tools had a sale on radio-controlled model airplanes. One of my friends went home with four of them and some spare parts in the form of extra wings. He said it took him about three sets of broken wings to get the hang of how to fly the silly things. Once he learned to keep them in the air they were a real hoot.
Thinking along the lines of “If some does some good, more will do more good,” his red-headed oldest son purchased a much more sophisticated remote control model airplane. Three sets of wings later he could get some nice moves out of the plane. He could get it to do loops and rolls and buzz his little brothers and all manner of fun things.
Then after a full-throttle pass that sent his brothers running for cover, the little airplane lost a right-of-way dispute with a tree. There was nothing left to attach a new set of wings to. One of the youngsters asked Shad, “Did you do that on purpose?” The reply was that the airplane has cost him $300.00 and he did not fly it into the tree on purpose. One of the younger siblings, far enough away to be safe, called out, “That was neat. Go get another one and do it again!” He declined.
Harbor Freight had another item on sale, and four of them ended up under the Christmas tree at my house. Well, three of them ended up under the tree. Santa installed one of them on my pick-up. When you push the button my Dodge truck sounds like a Model “T” Ford. “AHOOOOOGAA!”
Ryan helped Mitch with the install on their mini-van. Mitch’s wife Tani was okay with it since it was installed so she has control over it. She said it was just what she needed to shush the nephews they end up hauling all over. The other two daughters-in-law are still thinking it over. The horn on my rig is a big hit with the grandsons, as you would expect.
I finally told the 7 and 9-year old grandchildren a joke they understood. What started it was the picture of the Oscar Mayer “Wiener-mobile” in the local paper. It will be visiting some stores in the area. Now the story:
A fellow found an old bottle on the beach. When he cleaned it off and opened it, a genie came out and offered him three wishes. He first wished for a nice ranch that included a rich gold mine. Granted. He then wished for a long, black Rolls-Royce convertible. Granted. He couldn’t make up his mind for the third wish. The genie ran out of time, and told him to just speak his wish when he decided. Two weeks later, cruising in his new Rolls-Royce, he started singing along with a commercial playing on the radio. “Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener” - - - - Granted. HG
